Appias epaphia epaphia

Appias epaphia epaphia (Cramer)
Papilio epaphia Cramer, 1779 [1775-1791], 3: 26; pi. 207, figs. D and E (Sierra Leone).
Both wings are white in both sexes and the costa of the forewing is about 25 mm. long; males have only a short black margin at the apex of the forewing; females have wide brownish black marginal bands on both wings, with two white streaks at the forewing apex and a broad brownish black band along the forewing cell. The species is distributed from Sierra Leone to Abyssinia and Madagascar, with the nominate subspecies occurring in the Guinean subregion. Bernardi (1954) does not record epaphia from the Nimba country and the localities of specimens in Carnegie Museum suggest that it is a coastal species.
Berger (1954) had a short series from several localities in the Cavalla Valley which apparently puzzled him. He identified this series as A. phaola. While phaola is superficially similar to epaphia, it does not enter the Occidental region beyond Togo, Dahomey and Fernando Po. I suspect that the four males of this series were in fact
A. epaphia and that the female was a specimen of A. sylvia in which the forewing orange blush was missing (as sometimes happens). It also seems likely that the record of phaola from the Reynolds Collection (Sharpe, 1906) was a similar misidentification.
In addition to Liberian specimens, A. epaphia is represented in Carnegie Museum by two males and six females from Sierra Leone (Good), three males from Ghana and excellent series from coastal Cameroons.
Liberia: Harbel, 1 $, 1 9 , IV; 2 $, VIII (Fox); Cape Palmas, 1 *, 1 9 (Good).