Melitaea phoebe narenta Fruhstorfer, 1917

Russell, P. J. C., Bartolozzi, L., Hawkins, R. L., Tennent, W. J. & Léger, T., 2020, Designation of lectotypes for some Spanish and other western European Melitaea taxa, some with mixed syntypic series of M. phoebe ([Denis & amp; Schiffermüller], 1775) and M. ornata Christoph, 1893 (Lepidoptera: Nymphalidae), SHILAP Revista de lepidopterología 48 (191), pp. 449-472 : 451-452

Melitaea phoebe narenta Fruhstorfer, 1917 (a)

[TL: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Herzegovina, Jablanica] was described from five females in the “Leonhard collection” (Leonhard does not appear to be in any list of entomologists and thus was presumably an amateur butterfly collector) and a pair of “Types” in Fruhstorfer’s collection (FRUHSTORFER, 1916: 1) in the MNHN, Paris (MNHNP). BERNARDI & DE LESSE (1951: 141) reported only a single male “holotype” in Fruhstorfer’s collection but both a male and a female are present in the collection, thus there appear to be two syntypes. A further “paratype” (i.e. a syntype) was reported as being in the Natural History Museum, London ( VAN OORSCHOT & COUTSIS (2014: 61).

Jablanica lies on the Neretva River at an elevation of c. 200 m; VAN OORSCHOT & COUTSIS (2014: 61) unfortunately misconstrued this as Mount Jablanica, which is on the North Macedonia/Albania border and mostly above 2000 m. The true locality, adjacent to both the Neretva River and Jablanica Lake, suggests a humid biotope typical of M. phoebe ; however prior to the building of the dam in 1954, the habitat was more xerophilous. On close inspection of the photographs of the undersides of the two specimens it was concluded that they belonged to M. phoebe as described by Fruhstorfer and in agreement with VAN OORSCHOT & COUTSIS (2014: 61) and RUSSELL & TENNENT (2016: note 55).