ZOBODAT - www.zobodat.at Zoologisch-Botanische Datenbank/Zoological-Botanical Database Digitale Literatur/Digital Literature Zeitschrift/Journal: Neue Entomologische Nachrichten Jahr/Year: 1999 Band/Volume: 46 Autor(en)/Author(s): Balint [Bálint] Zsolt Artikel/Article: Annotated list of type specimens of Polyommatus sensu Eliot of the Natural History Museum, London (Lepidoptera, Lycaenidae) 1-89 ©Entomologisches Museum Dr. Ulf Eitschberger, download unter www.zobodat.at Q))Si NEUE ENTOMOLOGISCHE ^ b l l o t / j e ^ NACHRICHTEN ^ s e u m aus dem Entomologischen Museum Dr. Ulf Eitschberger Beiträge zur Ökologie, Faunistik und Systematik von Lepidopteren 46. Band ISSN 0722-3773 November 1999 ZSOLTBÄLINT Annotated list of type specimens of Polyommatus sensu Eliot of the Natural History Museum, London (Lepidoptera, Lycaenidae) Verlag: Dr. Ulf Eitschberger, Humboldtstr. 13a, D-95168 Marktleuthen Einzelpreis: DM 75,— / € 38,35 ©Entomologisches Museum Dr. Ulf Eitschberger, download unter www.zobodat.at NEUE ENTOMOLOGISCHE NACHRICHTEN aus dem Entomologischen Museum Dr. Ulf Eitschberger Beiträge zur Ökologie, Faunistik und Systematik von Lepidopteren Herausgeber und Schriftleitung: Dr. ULF EITSCHBERGER, Humboldtstr. 13a, D-95168 Marktleuthen Die Zeitschrift und alle in ihr enthaltenen einzelnen Beiträge und Abbildungen sind urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Ver­ wertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechts­ gesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. Das gilt insbesondere für Vervielfältigungen auf foto­ mechanischem Wege (Fotokopie, Mikrokopie), Übersetzun­ gen, Mikroverfilmungen und die Einspeicherung und Verar­ beitung in elektronischen Systemen. ISSN 0722-3773 ©Entomologisches Museum Dr. Ulf Eitschberger, download unter www.zobodat.at NEUE ENTOMOLOGISCHE NACHRICHTEN aus dem Entomologischen Museum Dr. Ulf Eitschberger Beiträge zur Ökologie, Faunistik und Systematik von Lepidopteren 46. Band ISSN 0722-3773 November 1999 ZSOLT BÁLINT Annotated list of type specimens of Polyommatus sensu E lio t of the Natural History Museum, London (Lepidoptera, Lycaenidae) Verlag: Dr. Ulf Eitschberger, Humboldtstr. 13a, D-95168 Marktleuthen ©Entomologisches Museum Dr. Ulf Eitschberger, download unter www.zobodat.at Annotated list of type specimens of Polyommatus sensu E l io t of the Natural History Museum, London (Lepidoptera, Lycaenidae) by Z so lt Ba li nt „Wie Morgenluft sind nämlich die Namen Seit Christus. Werden Träume. Fallen wie Irrtum, Auf das Herz und tötend, wenn nicht einer Erwäget, was sie sind, und begreift." F. Hölderlin, Patmos, Vorstufe einer späteren Fassung (1803) Contents Synopsis 3 Introduction 3 A List of Type Specimens of Polyommatus sensu Eliot in the Natural History Museum, London 6 Cyclargus genus group 6 llylos genus group 7 Nabokovia genus group 7 Polyommatus genus group 8 Summary of primary type information 65 Summary of nomenclatorial changes 68 Acknowledgements 69 References 69 Index 80 Colour plates 82 Synopsis A detailed list is given of the type material of 326 nominal taxa of Polyommatus Latreille (sensu Eliot) represented in the collection of the Natural History Museum, London. 190 lectotypes are newly desig­ nated, 21 names have been synonymized and one replacement name is proposed. Introduction The name Polyommatus is used in the title as well as throughout the introduction in the sense of Eliot, who grouped 33 valid generic names in his Polyommatus Section (Eliot, 1973: 449-450). There is no doubt that Eliot's classification in this respect was solely based on the paper of Nabokov (1945: 47- 48), because Nabokov's Plebejinae contained exactly the same genera. But Nabokov's Plebejinae as well as Eliot's Polyommatus Section is not a natural entity. This lias been already discovered and re­ flected in the literature (e. g. Miller & Brown, 1981: 114). However most of the workers followed the classification of Eliot (e. g. Howe, 1975: 321-323 and 337-350; Scott, 1986: 407-416), because the polyphyly was not convincingly demonstrated. ©Entomologisches Museum Dr. Ulf Eitschberger, download unter www.zobodat.at Annotated list of type specimens of Polyommatus sensu E l io t of the Natural History Museum, London (Lepidoptera, Lycaenidae) by Z so lt Ba li nt „Wie Morgenluft sind nämlich die Namen Seit Christus. Werden Träume. Fallen wie Irrtum, Auf das Herz und tötend, wenn nicht einer Erwäget, was sie sind, und begreift." F. Hölderlin, Patmos, Vorstufe einer späteren Fassung (1803) Contents Synopsis 3 Introduction 3 A List of Type Specimens of Polyommatus sensu Eliot in the Natural History Museum, London 6 Cyclargus genus group 6 Itylos genus group 7 Nabokovia genus group 7 Polyommatus genus group 8 Summary of primary type information 65 Summary of nomenclatorial changes 68 Acknowledgements 69 References 69 Index 80 Colour plates 82 Synopsis A detailed list is given of the type material of 326 nominal taxa of Polyommatus Latreille (sensu Eliot) represented in the collection of the Natural History Museum, London. 190 lectotypes are newly desig­ nated, 21 names have been synonymized and one replacement name is proposed. Introduction The name Polyommatus is used in the title as well as throughout the introduction in the sense of Eliot, who grouped 33 valid generic names in his Polyommatus Section (Eliot, 1973: 449-450). There is no doubt that Eliot's classification in this respect was solely based on the paper of Nabokov (1945: 47- 48), because Nabokov's Plebejinae contained exactly the same genera. But Nabokov's Plebejinae as well as Eliot's Polyommatus Section is not a natural entity. This lias been already discovered and re­ flected in the literature (e. g. Miller & Brown, 1981: 114). However most of the workers followed the classification of Eliot (e.g. Howe, 1975: 321-323 and 337-350; Scott, 1986: 407-416), because the polyphyly was not convincingly demonstrated. ©Entomologisches Museum Dr. Ulf Eitschberger, download unter www.zobodat.at 4 Introduction Two of my recent publications deal with this problem, reforming the Polyommatus genus group (= Polyommatus Section sensu Eliot) and clarifying the relationships with taxa to be excluded from the original EuoTian section (Balint & J onson, 1995c: 5, 24-26, 220 and Balint & J ohnson, 1997). Thus the Polyommatus genus group is now divided into 16 genera of four genus groups (Table 1.). Table 1: *Polyommatus Section* genera and their recent groupings according to Balint & Johnson (1997). Cyclargus Itylos Nabokovia Polyommatus Genus Group Genus Group Genus Group Genus Group Cyclargus Hemiargus Echinargus Pseudolucia Pseudochrysops Itylos Nabokovia Arida Eldoradina Madeleinea Chilades Plebejus Paralycaeides Agriades Polyommatus Albulina Polyommatus lycaenids, the Blue Butterflies, are important members of temperate and high altitude Rhopalocera. But in contrast to the temperate regions of the New World (North America and Chile- Argentina)—where the presence of lycaenid tribes Eumaeini and Polyommatini is more or less bal­ anced according to their percentage in the fauna as a whole—the lycaenid fauna of the western part of the Old World (Palaearctic region) is overwhelmed by blue butterflies. Thus Polyommatus had for long been favoured with the attentions of lepidopterists because a substantial part of new material they re­ ceived for study were actually Blues. Therefore classical authors as well as contemporary lepidopter­ ists named many polyommatines; consequently significant type material of blue butterflies can be found in the Natural History Museum (BMNH) (see Table 2.). Very recently, an extensive catalogue of the family Lycaenidae of the world was published (Bridges, 1988, revised and extended edition 1994). This volume holds enormous bibliographic information of the whole family, but references to primary type-materials (see Bridges, 1988, Part III, and Bridges, 1994, part X) are scarce and in many cases are not correct. That is one of the reasons why I decided to locate, and label carefully, historical specimens in the BMNH, and database them. My other reason originates from the fact, that as a curator of butterflies of the Hungarian Natural History Museum, Budapest (HNHM)—having the task of compiling the catalogue of our classical collections of lepidopterists Tobias Koy (1776-1842), Emericus Frivaldszky (1799-1870), Ferdinand Ochsenheimer (1765-1822) and Friedrich Treitschke (1776-1842)—I was faced several times with the bitter experience that specimens with historical importance but without “warning" labels can be easily lost or exchanged during the course of times. But this was a general trend before the worldwide accep­ tance of type-concept. I also discovered this phenomenon in London: I could locate in the BMNH only a single specimen of ‘‘Polyommatus’' originating from the Frivaldszky collection in spite of the fact that G ray listed 16 specimens-15 of them were actually syntypes (Gray, 1847: 47-50). And last but not least, and it is also worth mentioning that this catalogue has arisen from my project to compile the "iconcographia* of world-wide polyommatine lycaenids, for which I need to study and catalogue primary type materials. The present work lists the *Polyommatus" type material of BMNH can be found in the general collec­ tion (drawers 29A: 606-928) and its supplementary parts (the Lycaenid Reference Collection and the historical Type Collection). Accordingly, other parts of the collection managed separately remained to be studied in the respect of Polyommatus types or papers, already published, have to be consulted