Acraea encedon, the common acraea, white-barred acraea or encedon acraea, is a butterfly of the family Nymphalidae. It is found in sub-Saharan Africa and south-western Arabia. It is one of the species of Acraea sometimes separated in Telchinia. Description The wingspan is , with the female being slightly larger than the male, but otherwise similar in pattern and colour. The apex of the forewing is blackish and divided by a white bar. The rest of the surface of the wings are usually orange with black spots, however paler varieties with a greyish or yellowish base colour are also found. The butterfly is a polymorphic Müllerian mimic of Danaus chrysippus, which is a highly unusual phenomenon as Müllerian mimicry is almost always monomorphic. Description in Seitz A. encedon is a very variable and widely distributed species and appears in many forms but with no definite local races. The black dots are the same in all the forms and are arranged as follows. Fore wing: 1 or 2 basal dots in 1b; a transverse spot in the cell; discal dots in 1b to 6, of which that in 1b is often double and always placed much nearer to the distal margin than the one in 2; in the forms with black apex discal dots 3 to 6 on the upper surface are indistinct against the dark ground-colour. Hindwing: basal dots in (1a), 1b, 1c and 7; 1 or 2 dots in the cell; one dot each in the basal angle of cellules 4 and 5 and discal dots in 1b to 7, of which the one in 3 or 4 is placed nearer to the distal margin than the rest and the one in 2 nearer to the base than that in 1b. The hindwing above has a narrow black or blackish marginal band 1 to 2 mm. in breadth, beneath the streaks on the interneural folds are often red-yellow instead of black. Throughout Africa south of the Sahara and Madagascar. encedon L. (56 e). The apical half of the forewing above blackish with white subapical band composed of 5 or 6 spots in cellules 3-6 (9, 10); ground-colour otherwise red-brown to yellow-brown, beneath somewhat lighter. f. infuscata Stgr. only differs from encedon in the smoky brown ground-colour. f. alcippina Auriv. [A. encedana Pierre, 1976 morph] has the hindwing in the middle more or less extended white, but otherwise agrees with the