Vanessula milca milca

Vanessula milca milca (Hewitson) (Fig. 161)
Liptena milca Hewitson, 1873 [1852-1876], 5: [86]; pi. [45], fig. 17 (West Africa).
Hewitson thought this was a lycaenid when he described it, but Karsch (1892) showed that it is a nymphalid and synonymized it with Vanessula buchneri Dewitz (1887). Evidently (and naturally) Dewitz did not think to examine Hewitson's illustrations of lycaenids when he found his apparently undescribed species from the Cameroons.
The specimen from Yendamalahoun appears to be the first record of the species in Occidental Africa and it differs in many details from the excellent series in Carnegie Museum from Cameroons, Gabon, Congo and East Africa. Hewitson merely cited "West Africa" as the type locality and mentioned Rogers as the collector of the holotype of milca. Elsewhere in Hewitson's "Illustrations", Rogers material is cited from Angola, Gabon and Fernando Po. The true type locality might be any of these places, or it might be some other station. Comparison of Hewitson's figure of the upperside, Karsch's figure and the series in Carnegie Museum reveals the startling fact that Hewitson's type and the male I took in Liberia (fig. 161) are identical, differing from the Cameroons specimens (fig. 162) in the width of the orange band: five millimeters wide at Cu 2 of the forewing in true milca, seven millimeters wide in Cameroons material. It would seem that the Rogers specimen described by Hewitson must have been taken
Figs. 161-162. Fig. 161, upperside, Vanessula milca milca (Hewitson), male, Yendamalahoun, Liberia. Fig. 162, upperside, Vanessula milca buchneri Dewitz, male, Lolodorf, Cameroons. Both natural size.
somewhere on the Guinea Coast in Occidental Africa, rather than in Cameroons, Congo or Angola. The populations in these last areas agree in band width and other features with Karsch's figure and are V. m. buchneri Dewitz.
Liberia: Yendamalahoun, 1 S , IV (Fox).