Melitaea phoebe rostagnoi Turati 1920

Melitaea phoebe rostagnoi Turati 1920 View in CoL

(223 and Tav. II, figs 10-12) [TL: Italy, Roma, Monte Autore]; from the figure 10, the male forewing apices appear distinctly acute as in M. phoebe . NEKRUTENKO (1993: 129) listed the Type material of Turati in the Museo Regionale di Scienze Naturali, Torino, Italy, (MRSN) and referring to this subspecies stated that there were two male and three female syntypes from Monte Autore, Province of Rome, Italy; he identified them as Melitaea phoebe , a conclusion with which we cannot argue.

In view of the current long-term closure of the museum we cannot be sure of their identity, but M. phoebe seems most likely. No specimen of M. ornata has been observed in peninsular Italy north of San Marco Catola, Foggia, Apulia, Italy (c. 41º 30’ N.) ( CAGNETTA 2016: 246). Similarly the aberration sterlineata Turati, 1921 : ( Fig. 12), with an almost unmarked discal area of the forewing and from the same locality, is most likely M. phoebe ; VAN OORSCHOT & COUTSIS (2014: 61) and RUSSELL & TENNENT (2016: 52, note 75) agreed with this determination.