Acraea serena, the dancing acraea, is a butterfly of the family Nymphalidae. It is found throughout Africa south of the Sahara. It is the most common of the Acraea, from Dakar to Fort-Dauphin and from Yemen to the Cape. This is the type species of the old genus Telchinia, which may warrant re-separation from Acraea. Formerly, A. serena was often misidentified as Acraea eponina (small orange acraea) or Acraea terpsicore (tawny coaster). It is very likely that the butterfly's black-spotted orange markings are a sign of unpalatability and it may well form part of a mimicry ring with Erikssonia edgei. Taxonomy of Acraea manjaca Boisduval Acraea manjaca from Madagascar, now considered to be conspecific with Acraea serena, has a complex taxonomic history which illustrates the problems in interpreting the genus as a whole. Here is an account of how Acraea manjaca was placed by different authors. Boisduval notes the proximity with eponina Cramer in his original description of 1833. Doubleday (1848) treats manjaca as a good species (1848) but Guerin (1849) places manjaca in synonymy with serena Fabricius, which was confirmed by Trimen (1862) and Mabille (1886). Aurivillius (1898) considers that manjaca Boisduval is a variety of Fabricius' serena which had, in turn, been put in synonymy with terpsicore Linnaeus by Butler (1894), and which then was thought to be eponina Cramer (Le Doux, 1928, Carcasson, 1961). Eltringham (1912, 1916) considers manjaca Boisduval to be a synonym of rougeti Guérin (Acraea serena). Le Doux (1928) reinstated manjaca as good subspecies of eponina. Van Son (1963) considers manjaca to be a simple form. Description in Seitz "A. terpsichore" misident. A. serena is a common species and very variable, especially in the female; it occurs everywhere in the region except in Arabia and forms some not quite sharply defined races. In the type-form the sexes are quite similar and above coloured and marked almost exactly as in ventura (56 a); the subapical band of the forewing is completely separated from the red-yellow basal half and is red-yellow or sometimes in the female whitish; both wings above and beneath with distinct yellow marginal spots; the basal area of the hindwing beneath without red streaks or only in 1 c and the cell with a red streak between the black dots; the marginal band always without red stripes on the interneural folds. In female-ab. janisca Godt. (the females 56 a are transitional to janisca)