Melitaea

Melitaea
	Adult male Melitaea arcesia chuana,; a member of Melitaea sensu stricto
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Arthropoda
Class:	Insecta
Order:	Lepidoptera
Family:	Nymphalidae
Subfamily:	Nymphalinae
Tribe:	Melitaeini
Subtribe:	Melitaeina; Newman, 1870
Genus:	Melitaea; Fabricius, 1807
Type species
	Papilio cinxia; Linnaeus, 1758
Diversity
	Some 85 species (but see text)
Synonyms
	Athaliaeformia Verity, 1950; Cinclidia Hübner, [1819]; Didymaeformia Verity, 1950; Lucina Rafinesque, 1815 (non Bruguière, [1797][verification needed]: preoccupied); Melilaea (lapsus); Melinaea Sodoffsky, 1837 (non Hübner, 1816: preoccupied); Melitea (lapsus; non Peron & Lesueur, 1810: ); Melithea (lapsus); Melithoea (lapsus); Melitoea (lapsus); Mellicta Billberg, 1820; Schoenis Hübner, [1819]

Melitaea is a genus of brush-footed butterflies (family Nymphalidae). They are here placed in the tribe Melitaeini of subfamily Nymphalinae; some authors elevate this tribe to subfamily rank.

As delimited here, Melitaea includes the genus Mellicta, making the subtribe Melitaeina monotypic (but see below). For long, it was believed that Mellicta was a junior objective synonym of Melitaea, sharing the same type species (the Glanville fritillary, M. cinxia). This was in error, however; the type species of Mellicta is actually the heath fritillary (M. athalia), making the two taxa junior subjective synonyms and thus eligible to be separated again. However, several other taxa are in fact objective synonyms (or at least have type specimens belonging to the same biological species) of Melitaea and Mellicta – Schoenis and the preoccupied Lucina and Melinaea for the former, Athaliaeformia for the latter.^[1]

Taxonomy[]

Adult Melitaea didymoides pekinensis, belonging to the large didyma group

Adult Melitaea solona evadne (minerva group)

Adult male Melitaea punica (phoebe group)

As noted above, Mellicta is considered to be a subgenus of Melitaea for the time being. The rationale is that even though the Melitaeina may not be monotypic, they do not seem to consist of just two genera (Melitaea and Mellicta) either, and recognition of Mellicta appears to leave Melitaea paraphyletic; consequently, other lineages would need elevation to distinct genus status also. As long as it is not fully known which species groups and/or subgenera warrant recognition as full genera, they are all retained in the present genus.

Species[]

In the following list, species-group/subgenus affiliation and type species are annotated. In the sensu lato circumscription used here, Melitaea contains almost ninety species. Most being assignable to one of the five groups/subgenera, there are a few that cannot be clearly placed with one of these at present:^[2]

didyma/Didymaeformia group

Melitaea abyssinica Oberthür, 1909
(Staudinger, 1886)
Oberthür, 1888
Staudinger, 1881
Higgins, 1941
Higgins, 1935
Melitaea arduinna (Esper, 1783) – Freyer's fritillary
Staudinger, 1881
Sheljuzhko, 1914
(Kollar, [1848])
Melitaea chitralensis Moore, 1901
Melitaea deserticola Oberthür, 1909 – desert fritillary
Melitaea didyma (Esper, 1778) – spotted fritillary, red-band fritillary (type of Didymaeformis)
Staudinger, 1895
Melitaea didymoides Eversmann, 1847
Fruhstorfer, 1917
Staudinger, 1882
Grum-Grshimailo, 1891
Kolenati, 1846
Weiss & Major, 2000
Sheljuzhko, 1929
Eversmann, 1847
Staudinger, 1901
Evans, 1932
Carbonell, 2007
Higgins, 1940
Evans, 1912
Sheljuzhko, 1935
Melitaea persea Kollar, [1850]
Sheljuzhko, 1928
Melitaea robertsi Butler, 1880 – Baluchi fritillary
Grum-Grshimailo, 1891
Wiltshire, 1941
Christoff, 1876^{[verification needed]}
Evans, 1924
Staudinger, 1892
Melitaea trivia Denis & Schiffermüller, 1775 – lesser spotted fritillary, desert fritillary
Oberthür, 1888

cinxia/Melitaea sensu stricto group

C. & R.Felder, [1867]
Melitaea arcesia Bremer, 1861 – blackvein fritillary
Melitaea balbita Moore, 1874
Leech, [1892]
Melitaea cinxia (Linnaeus, 1758) – Glanville fritillary (type of Melitaea)
Melitaea diamina (Lang, 1789) – false-heath fritillary
Oberthür, 1888
Melitaea protomedia Ménétriés, 1859
Melitaea sindura Moore, 1865

minerva group

Staudinger, 1881
Evans, 1912
Avinoff, 1910
Churkin, Kolesnichenko & Tuzov, 2000
Staudinger, 1881
Staudinger, 1886
Melitaea solona Alphéraky, 1881
Staudinger, 1886
Erschoff, 1874

phoebe/Cinclidia group

Melitaea aetherie (Hübner, 1826) – aetherie fritillary
Lederer, 1861
Wiltshire, 1941
Higgins, 1941
Wyatt, 1961
Melitaea phoebe Denis & Schiffermüller, 1775 – knapweed fritillary (type of Cinclidia)
Alberti, 1969
Melitaea punica Oberthür, 1876
Butler, 1878
Alphéraky, 1881
Melitaea telona Christoph, 1893 (formerly in M. phoebe or M. punica)
Higgins, 1940

Mellicta group

Adult Melitaea centralasiae of the Mellicta group

Staudinger, 1881
Ménétriés in Schrenck, 1859
Melitaea asteria (Freyer, 1828) – little fritillary
Melitaea athalia (Rottemburg, 1775) – heath fritillary (type of Mellicta)
Melitaea aurelia Nickerl, 1850 – Nickerl's fritillary
Melitaea britomartis Assmann, 1847 – Assmann's fritillary
Verity, 1930
Melitaea centralasiae (Wnukowsky, 1929) (sometimes in M. menetriesi)
Melitaea deione Geyer, 1832 – Provençal fritillary

Caradja, 1895
Melitaea nevadensis Oberthür, 1904
Melitaea parthenoides Keferstein, 1851 – European meadow fritillary, meadow fritillary
Bremer, 1861
Wnukowsky, 1929
Melitaea varia (Meyer-Dür, 1851) – Grisons fritillary
(Dubatolov, 1998)

Incertae sedis

Kudrna & Mracek, 1994
Eckweiler, 2008
Clench & Shoumatoff, 1956
de Freina, 1980
Higgins, 1941

Footnotes[]

^ Pitkin & Jenkins (2004ab), FE (2009), and see references in Haaramo (2010, 2011)
^ See references in Haaramo (2010, 2011)

References[]

Fauna Europaea (FE) (2009): Melitaea. Version 2.1, 22 December 2009. Retrieved 9 February 2011.
Pitkin, Brian & Jenkins, Paul (2004a): Butterflies and Moths of the World, Generic Names and their Type-species – Melitaea. Version of 5 November 2004. Retrieved 9 February 2011.
Pitkin, Brian & Jenkins, Paul (2004b): Butterflies and Moths of the World, Generic Names and their Type-species – Mellicta. Version of 5 November 2004. Retrieved 9 February 2011.
Savela, Markku (2009): Markku Savela's Lepidoptera and Some Other Life Forms – Mellicta. Version of 17 August 2009. Retrieved 9 February 2011.
Savela, Markku (2010): Markku Savela's Lepidoptera and Some Other Life Forms – Melitaea. Version of 2 May 2010. Retrieved 9 February 2011.

[1] Pitkin & Jenkins (2004ab), FE (2009), and see references in Haaramo (2010, 2011)

[2] See references in Haaramo (2010, 2011)

[1]

[2]

Melitaea

Adult male Melitaea arcesia chuana, a member of Melitaea sensu stricto
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Arthropoda
Class:	Insecta
Order:	Lepidoptera
Family:	Nymphalidae
Subfamily:	Nymphalinae
Tribe:	Melitaeini
Subtribe:	Melitaeina Newman, 1870
Genus:	Melitaea Fabricius, 1807
Type species
Papilio cinxia Linnaeus, 1758
Diversity
Some 85 species (but see text)
Synonyms
Athaliaeformia Verity, 1950 Cinclidia Hübner, [1819] Didymaeformia Verity, 1950 Lucina Rafinesque, 1815 (non Bruguière, [1797]^{[verification needed]}: preoccupied) Melilaea (lapsus) Melinaea Sodoffsky, 1837 (non Hübner, 1816: preoccupied) Melitea (lapsus; non Peron & Lesueur, 1810: ) Melithea (lapsus) Melithoea (lapsus) Melitoea (lapsus) Mellicta Billberg, 1820 Schoenis Hübner, [1819]