Welcome to the Early Summer edition of African Butterfly News!

Several of you would have attended the 34th Conference and Annual General Meeting of the Lepidopterists’ Society of Africa, which was held at the Nestle Centre, Walter Sisulu Botanical Gardens over the weekend of 21–22 October. I’m sure everyone who was there would agree that this was an enjoyable and informative event: next year’s Conference is pencilled in for Hermannsburg (near Greytown in the KwaZulu-Natal Midlands), which was the venue in 2013. The date is still to be confirmed, but we intend to hold it in October during the flight period of some of the special Midlands butterflies such as the Estcourt Blue (Lepidochrysops pephredo). The early part of this season, in common with the preceding couple of years, has been very disappointing. Very few significant records have been obtained from the Highveld and the Western and Northern Cape have been desperately dry. A notable highlight has been Andrew Morton’s capture of a Southern Purple (Aslauga australis) from Morgan’s Bay; refer to an article later in this newsletter.

Welcome to the Spring edition of African Butterfly News!

I trust everyone has dusted off their nets, recharged their camera batteries and sorted out their home chores in readiness for the coming season.With a few exceptions, the 2016 - 2017 season was one to forget, with generally small butterfly-emergences, few significant new records and severe weather conditions, culminating in the catastrophic fire in the Southern Cape in June.Hopefully the coming season will be better...LepSoc Africa (LSA) have been busy with conservation efforts (refer to the report below on the Margate water pipeline saga) and new ventures, including the Aloeides and Kedestes Conservation Projects.Mark Williams very kindly offered to perform an editing role for the Newsletter – hopefully this copy (and the previous three editions) is relatively free of taxonomic errors or spelling mistakes!This magazine relies on material from you, the members of LepSoc Africa. Please forward Jeremy Dobson (jchdobson@gmail.com) any news, or photographs that might be of interest.If anyone has ideas regarding future format or content, please feel free to make suggestions.

African Butterfly News celebrates its first year of existence; the first edition, 2016-5, was circulated in September last year.

The photographic competition commenced in August 2016, so the annual award will be made in the next, Spring Edition – for purposes of the photographic competition, the season starts in August and ends in July.

A reminder that the newsletter is circulated every two months: Late Summer (January and February) – circulated in January; Autumn (March and April) – circulated in March; Early Winter (May and June) – circulated in May; Late Winter (July and August) – circulated in July; Spring (September and October) – circulated in September; Early Summer (November and December) – circulated in November.

Welcome to the Early Winter edition of African Butterfly News!

You will notice our revamped logo at the top-right of the page, created by Hans Bloemmen, a Belgian artist and a friend of Jan Praet. While we are never going to achieve full consensus on this, I believe the new logo is a considerable improvement on its predecessor. As the logo only includes the abbreviation “LepSoc Africa” it should be accompanied at all times with our full title “The Lepidopterists’ Society of Africa”. There have been several discussions recently regarding a common, English name for Lepidoptera. We have used “Buttermoth” as an interim measure, but this name has attracted a mixed response.LepSoc Africa council have decided to adopt the British approach, referring to all Lepidoptera as Butterflies: the term “moth” will simply disappear. Traditionally a “butterfly” enthusiast might have been exclusively interested in the Papilionidae family; a “moth” devotee might have specialised in Geometridae for example. We are now all merely students of “Butterflies”, in all their diversity! Please try and assist the Society with this approach: we want to try and make the butterfly / moth division a thing of the past. The new website is up and running and has a fully functional mailing system (http://www.lepsocafrica.org). Many thanks to Dave and Hanna Edge, who have spent a lot of time setting this up and rationalizing the membership-list and subscriptions payment system.

Welcome to the Autumn edition of African Butterfly News!

Despite good late summer rain in several areas, it continues to be a tough season in most parts of the country. Several Skollies (Thestor species), have not been recorded at all – refer to Western Cape under Regional Roundup. On the Highveld, many species, especially Browns (Satyrinae) and Skippers (Hesperiidae), have been very scarce.The usual Brown-veined White (Belenois aurota) migration was in full swing in late January, although in my experience, the butterflies were flying in a south-easterly direction, rather than the usual north-easterly course. Did anyone else notice this? In Mpumalanga, African Migrants (Catopsilia florella) appeared to have taken over the reins from B. aurota, and were also flying southwest.

Dave Edge, LepSoc Africa’s Treasurer and co-Editor of Metamorphosis, has been instrumental in setting up the new website. The final version can be viewed at http://www.lepsocafrica.org.