Melitaea telona is a butterfly in the family Nymphalidae

Nymphalidae

The Nymphalidae is a family of about 5,000 species of butterflies which are distributed throughout most of the world. These are usually medium sized to large butterflies. Most species have a reduced pair of forelegs and many hold their colourful wings flat when resting. They are also called...

. The species rank of Melitaea telona (type location Jerusalem, Israel

Israel

The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...

) was only very recently recognised in two publications by Russell, et al. in 2005 and 2007. It has a disjunct distribution from the Levant

Levant

The Levant or ) is the geographic region and culture zone of the "eastern Mediterranean littoral between Anatolia and Egypt" . The Levant includes most of modern Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Israel, the Palestinian territories, and sometimes parts of Turkey and Iraq, and corresponds roughly to the...

 across Asia Minor

Asia Minor

Asia Minor is a geographical location at the westernmost protrusion of Asia, also called Anatolia, and corresponds to the western two thirds of the Asian part of Turkey...

 and the Balkans

Balkans

The Balkans is a geopolitical and cultural region of southeastern Europe...

 to southern Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

 and Sicily

Sicily

Sicily is a region of Italy, and is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Along with the surrounding minor islands, it constitutes an autonomous region of Italy, the Regione Autonoma Siciliana Sicily has a rich and unique culture, especially with regard to the arts, music, literature,...

 and to the Carpathian basin.

Its separation from Melitaea phoebe

Melitaea phoebe

The Knapweed Fritillary is a butterfly of the Nymphalidae family. It is found in the Palearctic ecozone, except the Northernmost locations. It used to include Melitaea telona, recently revalidated as a distinct cryptic species....

was mostly based on larval characters. M. telona larvae have a brick red head from the fourth larval instar and they are monophagous, feeding on different Asteraceae

Asteraceae

The Asteraceae or Compositae , is an exceedingly large and widespread family of vascular plants. The group has more than 22,750 currently accepted species, spread across 1620 genera and 12 subfamilies...

 species, mainly on regionally different, mostly local endemic Centaurea

Centaurea

Centaurea is a genus of between 350 and 600 species of herbaceous thistle-like flowering plants in the family Asteraceae. Members of the genus are found only north of the equator, mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere; the Middle East and surrounding regions are particularly species-rich...

species. M. phoebe on the other hand is oligophagous and its head capsule is always black. Russell et al. suggested that the name punica was erroneously used by many taxonomists as a senior synonym of telona. Thus, Melitaea punica

Melitaea punica

Melitaea punica is a butterfly of the Nymphalidae family. It is found in North Africa.Adults are on wing from June to July....

(Type location Lambessa, Algeria) occurs in North Africa only. These results were also confirmed by genetic studies based on the analysis of one mitochondrial and two nuclear genes in several species of the M. phoebe-group by Leneveu, et al. in 2009 and also by enzyme electrophoresis in the case of M. phoebe and M. telona kovacsi (a Hungarian subspecies) by Pecsenye, et al. in 2007.