Melitaea phoebe guevara Fruhstorfer, 1917

Melitaea phoebe guevara Fruhstorfer, 1917 View in CoL

[TL: Spain, Castilien, (Cuenca mont.)] was described from three males in the “Leonhard collection”. There is a significant statement in the description given by FRUHSTORFER (1917: 19), who said that this subspecies bore a close relationship to both subspecies ogygia from Greece and telona from “Palästina” (considered to be near Jerusalem, Israel [ HIGGINS, 1941: 335]). Both are morphologically very similar and were considered to be M. ornata ( RUSSELL & TENNENT, 2016: notes 59 and 91); however, TÓTH et al. (2014) suggested that M. telona may be a fourth species in this group. HIGGINS (1941: 349) suggested a similarity between guevara and subspecies bethunebakeri (see below). A “holotype” male and two male “paratypes” (i.e. three syntypes) were recognised by BERNARDI & DE LESSE (1951: 141). HESSELBARTH et al. (1995: 1030 /1031 stated that they should be considered more correctly as lectotype and paralectotypes, with which the present authors agree. An inspection of the Fruhstorfer collection in MNHNP by RR revealed that there are three male specimens present, two of which have “PARATYPE” labels attached (presumably, since they were the first to mention “paratypes”, by BERNARDI & DE LESSE, 1951: 141) but the third specimen has no “type” label. The question arose: was this third specimen one of the syntypes with the “HOLOTYPE” label missing? A close inspection of the wing and antenna morphology from high quality photographs ( Figs 9a, b, 10a, b, 11a, b) indicated that the specimens all belong the same species, M. ornata , in contrast to VAN OORSCHOT & COUTSIS (2014: 61), based on studies of genitalia, and RUSSELL & TENNENT (2016: 48, note 41), who both considered, prior to the confirmation of the presence of M. ornata in Spain, that all Iberian subspecies were of M. phoebe .

Inspection of the labels ( Figs 9c, 10c, 11c) revealed no indication that any of the specimens had originated from the Leonhard collection. The location labels were similar in all respects, being handwritten as follows: “Castilien [underlined with printed dots]/ Cuenca/ mont./ 1900 Korb”. Conversely, the identification labels, also handwritten, were not all the same: the two specimens with “PARATYPE” labels were handwritten as follows: “ M. phoebe / guevara Fruhst. ”, whereas the label of the “non-type” specimen was written in a different hand as follows: “ Melitaea phoebe / ssp. guevara Frhst. / 1917 (Soc. Ent. p. 19)”. Although it is possible that this is the specimen observed by BERNARDI & DE LESSE (1958), it cannot be assumed that this is their presumed ‘holotype’. Since it is possible that the specimen with the “HOLOTYPE” label may turn up in the future, it was considered unwise to designate a lectotype under these circumstances. We here formally identify the three available syntypes as Melitaea ornata guevara Fruhstorfer, 1917 , comb. n.