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melitaea

{{Short description|Genus of butterflies}}

{{Redirect|Melithea|the octocoral genus|Melithaea}}

{{For|the town of ancient Thessaly|Melitaea (Thessaly)}}

{{Automatic taxobox

| image = Melitaea arcesia chuana - Seitz.png

| image_caption = Adult male Melitaea arcesia chuana,
a member of Melitaea sensu stricto

| display_parents = 3

| parent_authority = Newman, 1870

| taxon = Melitaea

| authority = Fabricius, 1807

| type_species = Papilio cinxia

| type_species_authority = Linnaeus, 1758

| diversity_link = #Species

| diversity = Some 85 species (but see text)

| synonyms =

Athaliaeformia Verity, 1950

Cinclidia Hübner, [1819]

Didymaeformia Verity, 1950

Lucina Rafinesque, 1815 (non Bruguière, [1797]{{Verify source|date=February 2011}}: preoccupied)

Melilaea (lapsus)

Melinaea Sodoffsky, 1837 (non Hübner, 1816: preoccupied)

Melitea (lapsus; non Peron & Lesueur, 1810: preoccupied)

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

Taxonomy

File:Melitaea didymoides pekinensis - Seitz.png, belonging to the large didyma group]]

File:Melitaea solona evadne - Seitz.png (minerva group)]]

File:Melitaea punica - Seitz.png (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:See references in Haaramo (2010, 2011)

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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

File:Melitaea centralasiae - Seitz.png of the Mellicta group]]

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Incertae sedis

Footnotes

{{Reflist}}

References

{{Commons category}}

{{Wikispecies}}

  • Fauna Europaea (FE) (2009): [https://web.archive.org/web/20110628175905/http://www.faunaeur.org/full_results.php?id=441577 Melitaea]. Version 2.1, 22 December 2009. Retrieved 9 February 2011.
  • Pitkin, Brian & Jenkins, Paul (2004a): [http://www.nhm.ac.uk/jdsml/research-curation/research/projects/butmoth/index.dsml Butterflies and Moths of the World, Generic Names and their Type-species] – [http://www.nhm.ac.uk/jdsml/research-curation/research/projects/butmoth/GenusDetails.dsml?NUMBER=17518.0 Melitaea]. Version of 5 November 2004. Retrieved 9 February 2011.
  • Pitkin, Brian & Jenkins, Paul (2004b): [http://www.nhm.ac.uk/jdsml/research-curation/research/projects/butmoth/index.dsml Butterflies and Moths of the World, Generic Names and their Type-species] – [http://www.nhm.ac.uk/jdsml/research-curation/research/projects/butmoth/GenusDetails.dsml?NUMBER=17537.0 Mellicta]. Version of 5 November 2004. Retrieved 9 February 2011.
  • Savela, Markku (2009): Markku Savela's Lepidoptera and Some Other Life Forms – [https://web.archive.org/web/20120414155736/http://www.nic.funet.fi/pub/sci/bio/life/insecta/lepidoptera/ditrysia/papilionoidea/nymphalidae/nymphalinae/mellicta/index.html Mellicta]. Version of 17 August 2009. Retrieved 9 February 2011.
  • Savela, Markku (2010): Markku Savela's Lepidoptera and Some Other Life Forms – [http://www.nic.funet.fi/pub/sci/bio/life/insecta/lepidoptera/ditrysia/papilionoidea/nymphalidae/nymphalinae/melitaea/index.html Melitaea]. Version of 2 May 2010. Retrieved 9 February 2011.

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Category:Melitaeini

Category:Butterfly genera

Category:Taxa named by Johan Christian Fabricius