Abstract
The meiotic chromosomes of seven charaxine species belonging to the genera Archaeoprepona, Prepona and Agrias from Brazil and Peru were investigated with primary and secondary spermatocytes. The haploid numbers of chromosomes were found to be n=16 for Archaeoprepona demophon and Ar. demophoon, n=15 for Ar. licomedes, n=9 for Ar. amphimachus and Ar. meander, n=12 for Prepona pheridamas and Agrias claudina All these Neotropical butterflies contained one to ten large-sized chromosomes in their metaphase plates. In view of the correlation between choromosome size and modal number of chromosomes (n=31) in Nymphalidae, the large-sized chromosomes noticed here might have been formed through chromosome fusion, which resulted in decrease of chromosome number.
