Charaxes jasius epijasius Reiche 1849

[Charaxes jasius epijasius Reiche]
Charaxes epijasius Reiche, 1850: 469; pi. 32, figs. 1 and 2 (Abyssinia). ? = Charaxes pelias form liberiae La Cerf, 1923: 365 (Liberia). Van Someren, 1963: 198, 204, 206.
This species, not yet recorded from Liberia, is distributed from Abyssinia to Senegal along the northern margins of the rainforests, and evidently in the intermittant corridor and island forests scattered in the savanna country. It quite possibly could occur in Liberia. The unique male described by La Cerf as a '"form" of pelias is obviously an aberrational specimen and Van Someren (1963) believes it to be, in fact, epijasius; if so, it represents a record of that species for Liberia. Since epijasius is generally a savanna species, it would not be surprising to find that in the Forest Zone it would have some pattern and color differences. On the other hand, as Van Someren points out, La Cerfs specimen bears many resemblances to C. castor (next species). Because La Cerfs description and the photograph of his specimen (Van Someren, 1963: pi. 2, fig. 8) are surprisingly close to a male of castor in Carnegie Museum from Sierra Leone — and this specimen is by no means identical with castor from Cameroons — there remains the possibility that liberiae represents a record of castor rather than of epijasius.