Gretna balenge balenge Holland, 1891 There are two subspecies recognised for Gretna balenge : the nominate subspecies which Holland (1891) described from Benita, Gabon, occurs from Nigeria to Uganda, western Tanzania, much of DR Congo, and north-western Zambia, while ssp. zowa Lindsey & Miller was described from Liberia and is found from Sierra Leone to the Volta area (Lindsey & Miller 1965, Larsen 2005). In Tanzania, ssp. balenge is now known from Bukoba, Kigoma and Mpanda. Adult behaviour. Carcasson (1981) notes that it flies at both dawn and dusk. Larsen (2005) reports ABRI collectors catching this species coming to ‘various kinds of foul bait’ near collecting camps in Cameroon and Central African Republic. In TCEC’s experience this is not a true forest species, but occurs wherever palms grow, including open situations on river banks, etc. Food plants. TCEC has reared this species from Raphia farinifera in Tanzania, and Eremospatha sp. rattan palms in north-western Zambia. The latter is the climbing palm food plant in Zambia referred to by Larsen (2005) and Vande weghe (2010). Motshagen (2013) has reared it from the ornamental Madagascan palm Dypsis lutescens in his garden at Port Harcourt, Nigeria (Figure 37.3). Ovum. The ovum (Figure 38) is very large, even for a palm-feeding skipper. It is rounded, wider than high, the widest part being at slightly less than half the height. The surface is covered with faint, irregular polygons dorsally, merging into irregular faint striations laterally. Leaf shelters. TCEC noted that the final instar caterpillar makes a tube by folding a leaflet, and eats its way down towards the base. A leaf shelter on Dypsis lutescens photographed by D. Motshagen in Nigeria (Motshagen 2013) is shown in Figure 40.1; it appears to have been made from a single leaflet, folded under, with feeding from both lamina basal to the shelter, cutting the mid rib, and the distal part of the shelter trimmed; the result is a sealed chamber which hangs from the leaflet and will soon dry out and ...