Polygonia c-aureum auteur ?

[Martin Honey]

>The original description is by Linnaeus, 1758, Systema Naturae (edn 10),
>1:477.
>
>"C. aureum. 116. P. N. alis angulatis fulvis nigro-maculatis; posticis
>subtus C aureo notatis. Habitat in Asia. Simillimus Pap. C albo, sed duplo
>major, subtus magis luteo-nebulosus & C aureo minori notatus."
>
>Malcolm Scoble and Martin Honey will shortly complete and publish a full
>catalogue and typification of the Linnaean butterflies which will provide a
>long-overdue clarification of this vital baseline. I *think* butterflies
>are the only remaining Lepidoptera for which this has not been done.
>
>Gaden Robinson

As Gaden has responded to Leps-L (I replied direct to Guy) I thought it
would be worth adding a few additional comments.

Gaden's initial comments about our butterfly project are correct as it is
nearing completion (the remit of the project was also to curate the
Linnaean butterfly collection on behalf of the Linnean Society of London).
The last comment, however, is not correct as there are some groups of
Lepidoptera that have, as yet, not been typified.

The entire moth collection was curated some years ago by Steve Fletcher and
myself. Together with Kauri Mikkola a paper was published on the Noctuoidea
described by Linnaeus (1993, Zool. J. Linn. Soc. 108: 103-169, but omitting
the ctenuchids which will be dealt with later). We are also just completing
a paper on the geometrids (in the broad sense) which we hope to publish
soon, again through the Linnean Society. This paper will also deal with
some pyralids that were described by Linnaeus under Phalaena (Geometra) and
were therefore not covered in Robinson & Nielsen, 1983. The remainder of
the Lepidoptera still to be dealt with are mainly small families (or
families in which Linnaeus described few species), and include the
bombycids, sphingids, ctenuchids.

I hope that this is of interest.

Martin
***********************************************************
Martin R. Honey CBiol MIBiol, Linnaean Butterfly Project
Biodiversity Division, Department of Entomology
The Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road
London, SW7 5BD, Great Britain
TELEPHONE: 0171 938 8735     International: 44 171 938 8735
FAX:       0171 938 8937     International: 44 171 938 8937
EMAIL:     M.Honey at nhm.ac.uk
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