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Neptis laeta
Wingspan around 5-6 cm. I think the blue looking wing-part in the first photo is a result of the flash light. I did not see that with the naked eye.
Lantana next to a flooded Mbuluzi river.
Thank you for all the information! And what a great photo you have of the specimen in the SNTC website, Kate :)
There are three species of Neptis confirmed from Swaziland (N. laeta, Common barred sailor; N. saclava marpessa, Spotted sailor, and N. serena serena, Serene sailor). There are others which might also be found in the area, the Streaked sailor (N. goochii) and Pennington's sailor (N. penningtoni), but these are yet to be confirmed.
The common barred sailor seems to occur fairly frequently within Mlawula. The colour variation in your photo might be refraction of light on the wings - they sometimes appear very irridescent:
http://www.sntc.org.sz/biodiversity/sdbu...
Oh lol, what a Neptis inferno! Thank you for all the time you took for the ID research! Perhaps Kate has an idea since she has been chasing butterflies here for a few years, and she had a great book done on the Swazil Butterflies. She must have seen some more of the Neptis around here!
I just learned about the toughness of these Neptis!
I thought it could be possible to get down to species level, but after a profound search, I am no more so sure. I think you would need the native specimen and a real expert in Neptis.
My first guess would have been Neptis alta:
http://abdb-africa.org/repository/repoPr...
But after looking at these ones, forget it...
http://rcdening.co.uk/rcdening_collectn/...
Or that one:
http://rcdening.co.uk/rcdening_collectn/...
This is also frustrating:
http://www.archive.org/stream/transactio...
Not really better:
http://be.convdocs.org/docs/index-91702....