Melitaea Telona

''Melitaea ornata'', the eastern knapweed fritillary, is a butterfly in the family Nymphalidae. The species rank of ''Melitaea ornata'' (type locality Guberlya, Russia) was only very recently recognised by two research groups independently (Russell et al., 2005; Varga et al., 2005). They realized that there was an unrecognised species in Europe under the name of '' M. phoebe''. The separation of this cryptic species was based on larval morphology from the fourth instar onwards. ''M. phoebe'' larvae have a black head capsule while the larvae of this recently recognised Ponto-Mediterranean species have a brick-red head capsule (Russell et al., 2007). The separation of the two taxa was also supported by the results of enzyme electrophoresis study (Pecsenye et al., 2007). Based on these observations, the name ''M. telona'' Fruhstorfer (type locality: Jerusalem, Israel) was taken into use for this species. In a recent molecular study, the ''M. phoebe'' group forms a monophyletic clade within the subgenus ''Didymaeformia'' (Leneveu et al., 2009). Although that study provided important results regarding the systematics of the genus, the members of the ''phoebe'' species group were poorly represented, and the need for a detailed examination of this group remained. One of the important results was the corroboration of the species rank of ''M. telona'' and the suggestion that the taxon ''punica'' (type locality: Lambessa, Algeria) may represent a separate species from both ''M. telona'' and ''M. phoebe''. Another recent study on the morphometry of genitalia in males and females of the ''phoebe'' species group provided additional information (Tóth & Varga, 2011). An analysis of a large number of specimens from the Palaearctic showed that ''Melitaea telona'' is not restricted to the Ponto-Mediterranean region since several new localities were found, including the Orenburg region (Russia), northern Iran and the easternmost border of Kazakhstan. Since the name ''ornata'' described by Hugo Theodor Christoph in 1893 (type locality: South-Urals, Russia) is older than the name ''telona'', the authors began to use ''M. ornata'' as the valid name for this species following the rule of priority. Recently, it has also been indicated that ''M. telona'' '' sensu stricto'' from Israel and ''M. ornata'' are different taxa (Tóth et al. 2014). Previous morphometrical studies have already revealed small differences in the genital structures of the males (Tóth et al. 2013; Tóth and Varga 2011) but the authors interpreted the difference as a well-pronounced intra-specific difference. In contrast, molecular data clearly showed that the two taxa are genetically distinct from each other. Based on the results of the analysis of seven genes, Tóth et al. (2014) concluded that ''M. telona'' is not a subspecies of ''M. ornata'' but a species in its own right.

''M. ornata'' larvae have a brick-red head from the fourth larval instar and they are monophagous or oligophagous, feeding on different Asteraceae species, mainly on regionally different, sometime local endemic ''Centaurea'' species. ''M. phoebe'' on the other hand is oligophagous and its head capsule is always black.

References

Julie Leneneviu, Anton Chichvarkhin and Niklas Wahlberg
Varying rates of diversification in the genus ''Melitaea'' (Lepidoptera: Nymphalidae) during the past 20 million years

János Pál Tóth, Zoltán Varga
Morphometric study on the genitalia of sibling species ''Melitaea phoebe'' and ''M. telona'' (Lepidoptera: Nymphalidae)
*Russell, P., Tennent, W.J., Pateman, J., Varga, Z., Benyamini, D., Pe'er, G., Bálint, Z. & Gascoigne-Pees, M. (2007) Further investigations into ''Melitaea telona'' Frushstorfer, 1908 (=''ogygia'' Frushstorfer, 1908 =''emipunica'' Verity, 1919) (Lepidoptera: Nymphalidae), with observations on biology and distribution. ''Entomologist's Gazette'', 58, 137-166.
* Russell, P., J., P., Gascoigne-Pees, M. & Tennent, W.J. (2005) ''Melitaea emipunia'' (Verity, 1919) stat. nov: a hitherto unrecognised butterfly species from Europe (Lepidoptera: Nymphalidae). ''Entomologist's Gazette'', 56, 67-70.
* Pecsenye, K., Bereczki, J., Tóth, A., Meglécz, E., Peregovits, L., Juhász, E. & Varga, Z. (2007) A poulációstruktúra és a genetikai variabilitás kapcsolata védett nappalilepke-fajainknál. In: A Kárpát-medence állatvilágának kialakulása. MTM, Budapest, pp. 241–260.


Tóth JP, Varga Z (2011) Inter- and intraspecific variation in the genitalia of the 'Melitaea phoebe group' (Lepidoptera, Nymphalidae). ''Zoologischer Anzeiger'' 250 (3):258-268

{{Taxonbar, from=Q15795594

Melitaea
Butterflies of Asia
Butterflies of Europe
Butterflies described in 1893