''Melitaea'' is a
genus of
brush-footed butterflies (
family Nymphalidae). They are here placed in the
tribe Melitaeini
Melitaeini are a group of brush-footed butterflies. Usually classified as a tribe of the Nymphalinae, they are sometimes raised to subfamily status as Melitaeinae. Common names include the highly ambiguous fritillaries (also used for some Helic ...
of
subfamily
In biological classification, a subfamily (Latin: ', plural ') is an auxiliary (intermediate) taxonomic rank, next below family but more inclusive than genus. Standard nomenclature rules end subfamily botanical names with "-oideae", and zoologi ...
Nymphalinae
The Nymphalinae are a subfamily of brush-footed butterflies (family Nymphalidae). Sometimes, the subfamilies Limenitidinae, and Biblidinae are included here as subordinate tribe(s), while the tribe Melitaeini is occasionally regarded as a distinc ...
; some authors elevate this tribe to subfamily rank.
As delimited here, ''Melitaea'' includes the genus ''Mellicta'', making the
subtribe
Subtribe is a taxonomic category ranking which is below the rank of tribe and above genus. The standard suffix for a subtribe is -ina (in animals) or -inae (in plants
Plants are predominantly photosynthetic eukaryotes of the kingdom Plant ...
Melitaeina
monotypic (but see below). For long, it was believed that ''Mellicta'' was a
junior objective synonym of ''Melitaea'', sharing the same
type species (the
Glanville fritillary, ''M. cinxia''). This was in error, however; the type species of ''Mellicta'' is actually the
heath fritillary (''M. athalia''), making the two
taxa junior subjective synonyms and thus eligible to be separated again. However, several other taxa are in fact objective synonyms (or at least have
type specimens belonging to the same biological species) of ''Melitaea'' and ''Mellicta'' – ''Schoenis'' and the
preoccupied
The Botanical and Zoological Codes of nomenclature treat the concept of synonymy differently.
* In botanical nomenclature, a synonym is a scientific nam