Clark’s Widow is a butterfly

Butterfly

A butterfly is a mainly day-flying insect of the order Lepidoptera, which includes the butterflies and moths. Like other holometabolous insects, the butterfly's life cycle consists of four parts: egg, larva, pupa and adult. Most species are diurnal. Butterflies have large, often brightly coloured...

 of the Nymphalidae

Nymphalidae

The Nymphalidae is a family of about 5,000 species of butterflies which are distributed throughout most of the world. These are usually medium sized to large butterflies. Most species have a reduced pair of forelegs and many hold their colourful wings flat when resting. They are also called...

 family. It is found in South Africa

South Africa

The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...

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The wingspan

Wingspan

The wingspan of an airplane or a bird, is the distance from one wingtip to the other wingtip. For example, the Boeing 777 has a wingspan of about ; and a Wandering Albatross caught in 1965 had a wingspan of , the official record for a living bird.The term wingspan, more technically extent, is...

 is 45-54 mm for males and 44-52 mm for females. Adults are on wing from November to February (with a peak from December to January, later for the northern populations). There is one generation per year

The larvae probably feed on various Poaceae

Poaceae

The Poaceae is a large and nearly ubiquitous family of flowering plants. Members of this family are commonly called grasses, although the term "grass" is also applied to plants that are not in the Poaceae lineage, including the rushes and sedges...

 species. Larvae have been reared on Pennisetum clandestinum

Pennisetum clandestinum

The tropical grass species Pennisetum clandestinum is known by several common names, most often kikuyu grass, as it is native to the region of East Africa that is home to the Kĩkũyũ tribe. Because of its rapid growth and aggressive nature, it is categorised as a noxious weed in some regions...

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Subspecies

• Dingana clarki clarki (eastern Cape)
• Dingana clarki amissivallis (Henning & Henning, 1996) (Verloren Valei in Mpumalanga)
• Dingana clarki dracomontana (Henning & Henning, 1996) (lower Drakensberg, from eastern Cape to KwaZulu-Natal, Swaziland and Mpumalanga)
• Dingana clarki ocra (Henning & Henning, 1996) (Mpumalanga Drakensberg)