17 January 2018

Golden Pansy – Raydah Escarpment

Whilst birdwatching the bottom valley of the Raydah Escarpment in the Asir Mountains of southwest Saudi Arabia, I came across and photographed a Golden Pansy Junonia chorimene. The Golden Pansy, is a butterfly in the Nymphalidae family and are commonly known as buckeyes, pansies or commodores. This genus flies on every continent except Antarctica and Golden Pansy is found in Senegal, the Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, Guinea, Mali, Sierra Leone, Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Togo, Benin, Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan, Ethiopia, Uganda, northern and western Kenya, northern Tanzania, south-western Saudi Arabia and Yemen. The habitat consists of riverine vegetation and the specimen I found was in a dry wadi at the bottom of the Raydah Escarpment.
Golden Pansy