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.