Tagiades flesus Fabricius 1781

Tagiades flesus (Fabricius) (Fig. 21, $ genitalia)
Papilio flesus Fabricius, 1781: 155 (West Africa).
= Papilio ophion Drury, 1782 [1770-1782], 3: 21; pi. 17, figs. 1, 2 (Sierra Leone). = Tagiades flesus form ophelia Evans, 1937: 28 (Kikura River, Lifura Valley, Congo).
A thorough examination of the specimens in Carnegie Museum shows no reliable basis for separating the dry season form ophelia from typical flesus. Many of the specimens show intermediate conditions of both characters Evans used to separate ophelia — the gray overscaling of the hindwing upper surface and the reduction of the hyaline spots on the forewing. Retention of the name "ophelia" for any purpose seems inadvisable.
Evans (1937: 28) records flesus from Senegambia east to Abyssinia and south to South Africa. It is apparently abundant.
Figures 21-22, 8 genitalia. Fig. 21, Tagiades jiesus, Harbel, Liberia. Fig. 22, Eagris d. denuba, Efulen, Cameroon.
Liberia: Harbel, 1 9 , II, 1 8 , 2 2 , III, 1 8 , 1 2 , V, 1 8 , VI, 1 8 , X, 1 2 , XI; Bomi Hills, 1 8 , IV; St. Paul River at Zorzor Road, 1 8 , V; Zorzor, 1 8 , XI; trail near Fisabu, 1 9 , XI; Ganta, 1 2 , V, 3 8 , 3 2 , VI, 1 8 , VII; Wanau Forest, 1 8 , VI, 1 8 , X; and Yendamalahoun, 1 8 , IV (Fox); Liberia, West Africa, 2 8 (A. C. Good).
This Liberian series is comparable in all respects with the remainder of the Carnegie Museum material — over two hundred specimens from Cameroon, Rio Muni, Gabon, Congo, Kenya, Tanganyika. Nyasaland and South Africa (Natal).