Official Journal of the Lepidopterists' Society of Africa
Metamorphosis Volume 36 (2025), Articles: 67 - 81
Publication Date : 2025-10-27
Author/s : T. Colin E. Congdon, Steve Collins, Alan Gardiner & Julian Bayliss

Title :

A Chain of Butterflies—Butterfly Endemism in Africa’s Eastern Mountains

Abstract :

Moreau’s Tanganyika-Nyasa Montane Chain is a series of mountain ranges running from south-eastern Kenya, south and west through Tanzania, and thence southwards through Malawi and extreme north-western Zambia to Mulanje Mountain in southern Malawi. These mountain ranges are the links in Moreau’s Tanganyika-Nyasa Montane Chain (the Chain). This is examined in terms of a series of butterfly Centres of Endemism. Butterflies endemic to the Chain are listed and distributions within it are examined. Neighbouring butterfly Centres of Endemism are used as counterfactuals to test the validity of the Chain, and butterflies endemic to these centres are also listed. The southernmost mountains of the Chain are found to belong to the South East Africa Montane Archipelago ecoregion, while the more northerly part of the Chain, from the Taita Hills in Kenya to the Nyika Plateau west of Lake Malawi, is found to be divide naturally into two overlapping Centres of Endemism, separated by altitude: the Eastern Arc Mountains of southern Kenya and Tanzania, and the ‘Tanzania – Malawi Highlands’; the former is already known but the latter we now identify as a new butterfly Centre of Endemism. Connecting the links in the Chain is shared butterfly endemism between the individual mountain blocks, enabling the identification and delineation of Centres of Endemism. The important endemic butterfly fauna of the adjoining Zanzibar – Inhambane Coastal Forest Mosaic, the Eastern Africa Coastal Zone, is separated from that of the montane highlands inland, and is discussed. This study shows that few otherwise locally endemic species have distributions which transgress from neighbouring Centres of Endemism into the Chain or vice versa. Conservation issues are considered.

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Keywords:

Biodiversity, Centres of Endemism, ecological zones, ecoregions. Moreau’s Tanganyika-Nyasa Montane Chain

Citation :

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