Melitaea
Melitaea is a genus of brush-footed butterflies (family Nymphalidae). They are here placed in the tribe Melitaeini of subfamily Nymphalinae; some authors elevate this tribe to subfamily rank. As delimited here, "Melitaea" includes the genus Mellicta, making the subtribe 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 "Lucina" and "Melinaea" for the former, "Athaliaeformia" for the latter. Taxonomy. As noted above, "Mellicta" is considered to be a subgenus of "Melitaea" for the time being. The rationale is that even though the Melitaeina may not be monotypic, they do not seem to consist of just two genera ("Melitaea" and "Mellicta") either, and recognition of "Mellicta" appears to leave "Melitaea" paraphyletic; consequently, other lineages would need elevation to distinct  genus status also. As long as it is not fully known which species groups and/or subgenera warrant recognition as full genera, they are all retained in the present genus. Species. In the following list, species-group/subgenus affiliation and type species are annotated. In the "sensu lato" circumscription used here, "Melitaea" contains almost ninety species. Most being assignable to one of the five groups/subgenera, there are a few that cannot be clearly placed with one of these at present: "Mellicta" group Incertae sedis