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

1. The Borosjenő group (Ineu, Roumania, some kilometres to the SW from Mts. Codru). Forewing broken at tornus, margin slightly convex under apex, wings broad. Ground color more yellowish, moderately bright. Black pattern on wing surface reduced, ground color expressed more clearly. Spots of first row high, almost touching, broad, approaching spots of second row. Spots of hindwing also more strongly expressed than in former races. Underside of hindwings rather light, less mottled in its total impression. Some specimens seem to build a transition to following group. Sexual organs, as we have already mentioned, refer also to this transition. We introduce the Borosjenő population, to commemorate its collector, as M. britomartis ssp. diószeghyi ssp. n. Holotype 1 Q* Borosjeno 20. VI. 1911., leg. Diósze ghy, in the Collection of the Hungarian Natural History Museum. Paratypes : 3$ from the same place 20. VI. 1911. and 2(J 3. VI. 1913., leg. Diószeghy, in the Collection of the Museum. 2. The Sliven (Bulgaria) group (on the southern side of the Eastern Balcan Mountains, 400 m a. s. 1.). Forewings broad, margin convex, suddenly breaking in tornus, wherefore the animals seem unusually large, though alar expanse of males is between 29—33 mm also here. Ground color yellowish rather than bright. Base of hindwings tend to melanism. On two specimens black places well developed, allowing to speak of melanism in one individual. Yellow of undersides livid,their pattern resembling specimens from Hungarian Central Mountains. Distal part of undulating dividing-line in third streak generally rather dark. The Sliven britomartis represent, in the aspect of their shape, color and the peculiarities of the male copulatory organs, an indubitably distinct geographical variety, to be named hereafter, to commemorate its collector, M. britomartis ssp. barthae ssp. n Holotype: 1 ^ Sliven (Bulgaria) 400 m, 13—15. VI. 1936., leg. В a r t h a, paratypes 4$, with the same data. All in the Collection of the Hungarian Natural History Museum. Distribution, biotops, flight. The distribution of M. britomartis in Hungary extends almost to the western border, reaching from then on to the east as far as the Central Mountains stretch, From the southern part of the country, we know it from the neighbourhood of Kaposvár, every other data originate from the northern regions of Hungary. The southern Kaposvár group builds, according to our data up to date, an island, divided by the Middle-Somogy hills and the Balaton from the nearest Transdanubial Northern populations. Britomartis occurs in the Transdanubium and around the Capital city in preponderantly low lying places. It was collected around Káld at 175 m level. Another collecting locality under 200 meters is the environment of Szada. In the other Transdanubial localities and around Budapest, it flies at 2—400 meters altitude. It was caught on the higher parts of the Central Mountains in still higher altitudes, 600 meters on the Dobogókő, 8—900 m in the Mts. Mátra (Galyatető), and the plateau of Mts. Bükk. There are large and continuous areas where it was never found : the plain regions of the Great Plains, and its continuation in the Transdanubium : also a low