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.
| Melitaea | |
|---|---|
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| Adult male Melitaea arcesia chuana, a member of Melitaea sensu stricto | |
Scientific classification 
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| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| 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 | |
| Diversity | |
| Some 85 species (but see text) | |
| Synonyms | |
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Athaliaeformia Verity, 1950 | |
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
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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
editIn 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]
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didyma/Didymaeformia group
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cinxia/Melitaea sensu stricto group
minerva group
phoebe/Cinclidia group
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Mellicta group
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- Melitaea kunlunensis Kudrna & Mracek, 1994
- Melitaea oorschoti Eckweiler, 2008
- Melitaea paludani Clench & Shoumatoff, 1956
- Melitaea tangigharuensis de Freina, 1980
- Melitaea wiltshirei Higgins, 1941
Footnotes
editReferences
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- 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.