Eastern Knapweed Fritillary

Melitaea ornata, the eastern knapweed fritillary, is a butterfly in the family Nymphalidae. The species rank of Melitaea ornata (type locality Guberlya, Russia) was only very recently recognised by two research groups independently (Russell et al., 2005; Varga et al., 2005). They realized that there was an unrecognised species in Europe under the name of M. phoebe. The separation of this cryptic species was based on larval morphology from the fourth instar onwards. M. phoebe larvae...