The Red Tab Policeman is a butterfly

Butterfly

A butterfly is a mainly day-flying insect of the order Lepidoptera, which includes the butterflies and moths. Like other holometabolous insects, the butterfly's life cycle consists of four parts: egg, larva, pupa and adult. Most species are diurnal. Butterflies have large, often brightly coloured...

 of the Hesperiidae family. It is found from Ethiopia

Ethiopia

Ethiopia , officially known as the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. It is the second-most populous nation in Africa, with over 82 million inhabitants, and the tenth-largest by area, occupying 1,100,000 km2...

 south to South Africa

South Africa

The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...

.

The wingspan

Wingspan

The wingspan of an airplane or a bird, is the distance from one wingtip to the other wingtip. For example, the Boeing 777 has a wingspan of about ; and a Wandering Albatross caught in 1965 had a wingspan of , the official record for a living bird.The term wingspan, more technically extent, is...

 is 58-64 mm for males and 61-66 mm for females. Adults are on wing year round in warmer areas with peaks in late summer and autumn in southern Africa.

The larvae feed on a wide range of plants, including Barringtonia racemosa

Barringtonia racemosa

Barringtonia racemosa is a tree in the family Lecythidaceae. It is commonly known as the Powder-puff Tree. It is found in coastal swamp forests and on the edges of estuaries in the Indian Ocean, starting at the east coast of Mozambique and KwaZulu-Natal to Madagascar, India, Sri Lanka, Malaysia,...

, Acridocarpus natalitius, Acridocarpus zanzibaricus, Acridocarpus glaucescens, Acridocarpus ristalitius, Dregea, Combretum

Combretum

The bushwillows or combretums, Combretum, make up the type genus of the family Combretaceae. The genus comprises about 370 species of trees and shrubs, roughly 300 of which are native to tropical and southern Africa, about 5 to Madagascar, some 25 to tropical Asia and approximately 40 to tropical...

and Byrsocarpus species.

Subspecies

• Coeliades keithloa keithloa (from Mozambique to KwaZulu-Natal)
• Coeliades keithloa kenya Evans, 1937 (Kenya)
• Coeliades keithloa merua Evans, 1947 (Kenya)
• Coeliades keithloa menelik (Ungemach, 1932) (Ethiopia)