Doubts about the validity of the species name Hipparchia hermione (Linnaeus, 1764) (Lepidoptera: Satyrinae), it being associated with the two species Hipparchia alcyone ([Denis & Schiffermüller], 1775) and H. genava (Fruhstorfer, 1908) following the designation of a lectotype by Kudrna (1977) - Second part –
Authors:   Rainstrasse 4, CH-8307 Effretikon, Switzerland, Jutzeler David 
Published: November 2022

25 years ago, my friend Guido Volpe (Castel Volturno, Campania) asked me for help to identify the Grayling species occurring in his region. In summer 1998, I started several rearing experiments with batches of ova from Italy to check their identity with the help of the larval stages. Guido Volpe procured the females for oviposition on different sites in the mountains of Lazio, Campania and Calabria and sent the obtained ova by mail to Switzerland. The question arose soon, which one of the two smaller Grayling species was indigenous to this region, Hipparchia genava or alcyone. In his study “Contribution à l’étude des Satyrinae de France”, Patrice Leraut (1990) elevated to species rank the taxon genava Fruhstorfer (1908) occurring in the Valais, claiming that its distribution area extends across the whole Italy to eastern Sicily. I hoped to confirm this assertion, being based mainly on the rods of the Jullien organ, also in the larval stages. For this purpose, I was forced to examine rearing series from the entire area inhabited by populations of the two smaller Grayling species. During the period 1998 to 2006, I investigated them with series from 8 European countries in total (see Jutzeler et al. 2005, map p. 152), by rearing them always from the ovum. In fact, the two smaller species alcyone and genava produced caterpillars of different appearance. The imagines that emerged under rearing conditions were retained to search them for characters being typical of each of the two species. The results from all these rearing experiments were recorded in the study on H. fagi and genava (Volpe and Jutzeler, 2001 – genava still named there alcyone) and in 3 studies being dedicated to alcyone and genava (Jutzeler et al., 2002, 2005, 2006). Already in those days, I didn’t use the name of “hermione Linnaeus, 1764” favoured by Kudrna (1977) to rename H. alcyone D. & S. In my eyes, it referred to two different species. Moreover, Kudrna’s lectotype designation did not conform to the rules of ICZN according to Higgins and Riley (1978) and I had detected during my investigations that this name was applied to designate the taxon fagi since 1775 until the mid-20th century and that it was often used in reality to designate unknowingly also the similar species genava. The synonymy of Papilio hermione Linnaeus, 1764 with P. fagi Scopoli, 1763 has been irrevocably established recently by Russell and Vane-Wright (2022). In the first part of “Doubts about the validity”, I posited the recognition of the specific rank of Hipparchia genava. Since the beginning of my research program on the Grayling complex, I tackled this question under various aspects. Of central importance was the determination of the characteristics of wings using reared imagines of the three Grayling species resulting from the numerous rearing series of Hipparchia alcyone, genava and fagi. The most important variations found among caterpillars and imagines are presented once again in this part of the study. Furthermore, the evaluation of preparations housed in the collections of the Zoological Museum Amsterdam (since 2011 housed in the Naturalis Biodiversity Centre Leiden) and other museums being figured on the 9 synoptical plates together with their genital armatures, was of primary importance for the present article. Thereby, the accuracy of Leraut’s (1990) diagnosis could be confirmed in the main, but with the limitation that the number of rods of the Jullien organ of alcyone and genava can also be beyond the range indicated by Leraut. Thus, the rods do not compellingly lead to a correct identification of every individual. As a new character of male genitalia, the strongly curved inferior edge of the male genital armature of H. alcyone should be noted. Accompanied by Peter Russell, I verified also Fruhstorfer’s (1908a) type material of H. genava housed at the British Museum of Natural History in London (BMNH). Contrary to all of the ever-voiced findings by Kudrna, all the individuals of the type series in London accorded perfectly with genava from the Valais using the wing characteristics. The variability of the wing design of H. genava (and fagi) is additionally illustrated with the figures reproduced from plate 73 of Verity’s 5th volume “Satyridae” (1953) of his work “Farfalle Diurne d’Italia”. The occurrence of Grayling species in some selected actual and historical distributional areas was furthermore checked by using material in collections. Accordingly, the Palatinate region was populated only by alcyone. Proofs that genava existed in this region do not seem to exist. Of the two small Grayling species in Alsace, Hipparchia genava still occurs in the Alsatian Jura (Haut-Rhin) whereas H. alcyone formerly populated, until the 1960s, some sites in the northern part of the Vosges (Bas-Rhin). In the Jura Mountains of Basel and Solothurn, only H. genava occurs, whereas alcyone and fagi are completely absent from those areas. In Liguria, H. fagi and genava are widespread whereas only 4 specimens representing alcyone could be detected from this region being collected in 1973 near Celle Ligure (Savona). I supported the inquiries in the field by Tristan Lafranchis and colleagues in the region of the contact areas of H. genava and alcyone in south-eastern France. Accordingly, Duponchel (1832-35) diagnosed correctly the occurrence of H. alcyone in the surroundings of Marseille. Individuals of H. alcyone from this region were described by Fruhstorfer as ssp. sogdiana, whereas Varin (1962) referred ssp. sogdiana erroneously to the “altitudinal form” corresponding with H. genava, considering the true alcyone from mount Faron near Toulon (Var) as “under-race faronica” of ssp. sogdiana (sensu genava).