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From the foreword:
"In substance this is the first full review of this genus for over three quarters of a century, the last having been undertaken by Talbot in 1944. Since then our knowledge of the Afrotropical butterfly fauna has greatly increased. A number of new species have been described ad hoc, but at the same time it has become ever clearer the systematics of the genus were confused and that a new look was required. This work takes that new look, using all the resources available to us today, including through extensive, multi-gene, molecular analysis and a reassessment of the phylogeny and evolution of the genus (Warren-Gash et al., 2020). Cryptic species are identified and compared, some of them for the first time. Adults of all 105 species, including those described for the first time, are described and illustrated in colour, along with the male genitalia, and some examples of the early stages."
Haydon Warren-Gash was born and grew up in Kenya, living until the age of thirteen on a coffee estate near Nairobi. He continued his studies in England and attended Cambridge University, taking an MA in economics, before joining the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. As a diplomat he was posted to Turkey, Spain and France before returning to Nairobi as Deputy High Commissioner in 1991. He subsequently served as Ambassador to Cote d’Ivoire and later to Morocco, and ended his diplomatic career as Her Majesty’s Ambassador to Colombia before retiring in 2009. His interest in butterflies stems back to his Kenya childhood, with regular visits to the Nairobi Museum to see Robert Carcasson, then the curator, to identify specimens and to learn the essential elements of entomology. It was an interest he has sustained through adult life, working in particular with the authorities in Kenya, Cote d’Ivoire and later Colombia to study the fauna of those countries. He published articles about lesser known butterflies of East Africa during his time in Nairobi, and later compiled a comprehensive checklist of the butterfly fauna of Cote d’Ivoire, accompanied by further checklists of species from specific localities. Since 2003, he has described a number of new Afrotropical species, either alone or with other authors, primarily in the family Lycaenidae, but including also Euphaedra and other Nymphalid genera, and has had several butterflies named after him, mainly Afrotropical species but also a satyrinae species from Colombia. In addition to preparing this revision he continues to be involved in a number of other research projects, involving both African and Neotropical butterflies.
