Colotis
genus of insects
Colotis, called orange tips or Arabs, is a genus of butterflies of the subfamily Pierinae found mainly in Africa and south-western Asia. The larvae of all Colotis
species specialize on plants in the family Capparaceae.
Species
Listed alphabetically within subgroups:
Subgenus Colotis Hübner, [1819]:
Colotis amata (Fabricius, 1775) –
Colotis antevippe (Boisduval, 1836) – large orange tip or red tip
Colotis aurigineus (Butler, 1883) – African golden, Arab veined, or gold double-banded orange
Colotis aurora (Cramer, [1780]) – plain orange tip
Colotis auxo (Lucas, 1852) – sulphur orange tip or yellow orange tip
Colotis calais (Cramer, 1775) – topaz Arab
Colotis celimene (Lucas, 1852) – lilac tip or magenta tip
Colotis chrysonome (Klug, 1829) – golden Arab
Colotis daira (Klug, 1829) – black-marked orange tip
Colotis danae (Fabricius, 1775) – scarlet tip or crimson tip
Colotis dissociatus (Butler, 1897)
Colotis doubledayi (Hopffer, 1862) – Doubleday's tip
Colotis elgonensis (Sharpe, 1891) – Elgon crimson tip
Colotis ephyia (Klug, 1829)
Colotis erone (Angas, 1849) – coast purple tip
Colotis etrida (Boisduval, 1836) – (small) orange tip
Colotis eucharis (Fabricius, 1775) – plain orange tip or sulphur orange tip
Colotis euippe (Linnaeus, 1758) – round winged orange tip
Colotis eunoma (Hopffer, 1855) – three spot crimson tip
Colotis evagore (Klug, 1829) – desert orange tip, small orange tip or tiny orange tip
Colotis evanthe (Boisduval, 1836) – Madagascar orange-tip
Colotis evanthides (Holland, 1896)
Colotis evenina (Wallengren, 1857) – common orange tip
Colotis fausta (Olivier, 1804) – (large) salmon Arab
Colotis guenei (Mabille, 1877) – Madagascar red-tip
Colotis halimede (Klug, 1829) – yellow patch, white orange patch white, white and orange Halimede, or dappled white
Colotis hetaera (Gerstaecker, 1871) – crimson tip or coast purple tip
Colotis hildebrandti (Staudinger, 1885) – golden tip
Colotis incretus (Butler, 1881)
Colotis ione (Godart, 1819) – Bushveld purple tip, (common) purple tip or violet tip
Colotis lais (Butler, 1876)
Colotis liagore (Klug, 1829)
Colotis mananhari (Ward, 1870) – chevron white
Colotis pallene (Hopffer, 1855) – Bushveld orange tip
Colotis phisadia (Godart, 1819) – blue-spotted Arab or variable colotis
Colotis protractus Butler, 1876
Colotis pleione (Klug, 1829) – orange patch white
Colotis protomedia (Klug, 1829) – yellow splendour
Colotis regina (Trimen, 1863) – large violet tip, regal purple tip, or queen purple tip
Colotis rogersi (Dixey, 1915) – Rogers' orange tip
Colotis ungemachi (Le Cerf, 1922)
Colotis venosa (Staudinger, 1885) – no patch white
Colotis vesta (Reiche, 1849) – veined orange, veined tip, or veined golden Arab
Colotis vestalis (Butler, 1876) – white Arab
Colotis zoe (Grandidier, 1867) – violet-tip
Subgenus Teracolus (Swainson, 1833):
Colotis eris (Klug, 1829) – banded gold tip or black-barred gold tip
Colotis subfasciatus (Swainson, 1833) – lemon traveller or lemon tip
Subgenus Cuneacolotis (Henning et al., 1997):
Colotis agoye (Wallengren, 1857) – speckled sulphur tip
Subgenus Gideona (Klots, 1933):
Colotis lucasi (Grandidier, 1867) – giant orange-tip
Status unknown:
Colotis fallax (Wichgraf, 1913), described from East Africa
References
External links
Pteron Images
Seitz, A. Die Gross-Schmetterlinge der Erde 13: Die Afrikanischen Tagfalter. Plate XIII 16 et seq.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Colotis” is genus of insects. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Colotis, genus and insects, not as a finished interpretation.
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Stable identifiers, scientific names and standards terminology offer the best bridge between this overview and specialist evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Dec 6, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q532473. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1819, 1775, 1836 and 1883.
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This entry incorporates text from “Colotis” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.