Melolontha

Melolontha
A cockchafer (Melolontha melolontha) at take-off
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Arthropoda
Class:	Insecta
Order:	Coleoptera
Family:	Scarabaeidae
Tribe:	Melolonthini
Genus:	Melolontha Fabricius, 1775
Species
Many, see text

Melolontha is a genus of beetles in the family Scarabaeidae. The European cockchafers belong to this genus.

Taxonomy[]

Linnaeus called the European cockchafer Scarabaeus melolontha. Étienne Louis Geoffroy used Melolontha as a genus name (1762), but his book has been suppressed by the International Commission of Zoological Nomenclature, and the authority for the name is the later (1775) publication by Johan Christian Fabricius.^[1]

Species[]

M. hippocastani

The following is a list of species within the genus Melolontha:^{[citation needed]}

• Faldermann, 1835
• Ballion, 1870
• Frivaldszky, 1835
• Reitter, 1902
• Burmeister 1855
• (Brenske, 1896)
• (Guerin, 1838)
• Petrovitz
• Sharp, 1876
• Arrow, 1913 – Indonesia
• Kraatz, 1887
• Sharp, 1876
• Melolontha hippocastani Fabricius, 1801 – European forest cockchafer
• Motschulsky, 1853
• Burmeister, 1939
• Burmeister, 1855
• Reitter 1906
• Melolontha melolontha (Linnaeus, 1758) – common European cockchafer
• Illiger, 1803
• Melolontha pectoralis Megerle von Mühlfeld, 1812 – European large cockchafer
• Fairmaire, 1889
• Niijima & Kinoshita
• (Brenske, 1896)

References[]

Wikispecies has information related to Melolontha.