Boros István (szerk.): A Magyar Természettudományi Múzeum évkönyve 5. (Budapest 1954)
Issekutz, L. ; Kovács, L.: Melitaea britomartis Assmann, with special regard to its occurrence in Hungary
Melitaea britomartis Assmann, with Special Regard to its Occurrence in Hungary By L. Issekutz & L. Kovács, Budapest Of all palaeartic Lepidoptera maybe none caused as much trouble to investigators as the athalia-group of the genus Melitaea. The external features of the species belonging here resemble each other to such extent that even a skilful worker falls victim to errors. 1 There are three species in the athalia-group of Melitaea, occurring also in Hungary, concerning the identification of which problems now and anon appear in literature : athalia Rott., parthenie Bkh. (aurelia Nick.), and britomartis Assm. Though, since some decades, it is an indubitable fact that we have to deal here with three distinct species, eminently differring in the anatomical structure of their copulatory organs, the question could not reach a satisfactory settling, even to day. Besides false determinations in sundry collections, even authors happen to take notice of two distinct species only, athalia and aurelia (parthenie to day), relegating britomartis to this latter, mostly as a variety or form, 2 notwithstanding the fact that the investigations of the Russian author, S u s h к i n, have finally cleared up this question in 1913. Sushkin made slides of the male copulatory organs of all three species, publishing his results both in writing and drawings. The correctness of his statements were justified by"later researches. If we raise the question why this result was not universally accepted by lepidopterists, we can offer several answers. U r b a h n indicates, very correctly, one of the causes, when he says that the big summarizing works serving mostly for the orientation of the lepidopterists, namely, Spule r's and Seit z's, were issued directly before the clarification of the problem, thereby representing and spreading the older and obsolete point of view. Another cause of the survival of the antiquated notion is the belief of some lepidopterists, that Lepidoptera can, in every case, be unerringly determined by external macroscopic characters alone. Enlarged knowledge has, however, taught workers that to correctly seperate specimens of nearly related species with similar external features, also microscopic characters must be taken into consideration. Such species are Melitaea athalia Rott., parthenie Bkh., (aurelia Nick.) and britomartis Assm. With regard to the а/Ла /ia-group, no original research was carried on in Hungary as yet. Our literature recognizes of the species belonging here athalia and aurelia (now parthenie) only, till 1866. Mann, Viennese lepidopterist, mentions first in 1867 that he caught britomartis in Hungary, with the result that our collectors began to pay attention to this butterfly. Some of them earnestly believed to have caught it, as witnessed by their insects relegated under the name britomartis. It could be established later that never a Hungarian britomartis was, left to us from the Hungarian collectors of the XIX century, the oldest specimen dating back to 1908. The britomartis of our elders was-generally a darker form of athalia, rather frequent in our surrounding mountains. We cannot say that they did not try to conscientuosly clarify what britomartis was really like. This is borne out by the fact that the proprietors of the larger collections acquired butterflies believed to be britomartis from abroad : they did not, however, get far by this method as, in what they received, there were to be found in equal portions, athalia, parthenie, indeed, sometimes britomartis, too. 1 So, for instance, Hormuzaki was engaged for some decades in this problem, yet U r b a h n found lately several errors in his determinations. 2 В e r g m a n n, in his work »Gross-Schmetterlinge Mitteldeutschlands«, speaks even now of aurelia f. britomartis, in 1952!
