Habitat: Is grassland or rocky areas in grassy savanna but it also occurs in open forest. The yellow zulu is found in localized colonies, often on the slopes of stone-strewn hillsides.
Large numbers of specimens are sometimes found within such a colony but usually less than a dozen occur in a particular colony.

Behavior: The flight is feeble and specimens alight frequently, usually on grass stems. They may spend long periods resting on grass stems. The butterfly closely resembles a day-flying geometrid moth, both in its appearance and flight pattern.

Flight time: The adults fly in most months of the year, but they are commoner from November to April. Peak numbers of adults are found in December and January.

Food: The larval food has been recorded as rock lichens, Lichenes by Clark & Dickson (1971) and as algae, Cyanophyta on rocks by Pringle et al. (1994).

Distribution:
Alaena a. amazoula (Boisduval, 1847): Cape - Natal, Swaziland, Transvaal, Zambia & Zimbabwe, Botswana.
A. a. ochroma (Vári, 1976): Transvaal, Mozambique, Zambia & Zimbabwe.
A. a. congoana (Aurivillius, 1914): D. R. of the Congo, Angola, Namibia.
A. a. nyasana (Hawker-Smith, 1933): Malawi.

Alaena genus with 25 species is a small yellow butterfly in family Lycaenidae, subfamily Poritiinae and tribe Liptenini. That is found in central to eastern and southern Africa.

What do the larvae of Alaena amazoula feed on?
Mark C. Williams December 2006 METAMORPHOSIS, VOL. 17, No. 4 140