[Papilio] ausonia Hübner, [1804]

(Samml. europ. Schmett., Pl. Pap. 113, Figs 582, 583; text: [1806] 1: 64, no. 12) LT: Italy. TD: (female holotype by monotypy) lost.

a) The name [Papilio] ausonia Hübner, [1804] (see Hemming 1937) was published on Pl. 113 of Papiliones, as caption to Figs 582 and 583. In the (very partial) text of the ‘Sammlung’, which appeared only in [1805-6], we are informed (p. 65) that the depicted specimen came from ‘Italien’ and was preserved under the name “Ausonia” in Abbot Mazzola’s collection. Together with Schiffermüller’s collection and many other materials, Ab. Vincenz Mazzola’s collection, bequeathed to the Naturhistorisches Museum (Vienna), was destroyed in the October 1848 bombardment of the centre of Vienna and ensuing fire (see Horn et al. 1990: 256).

[Note. Hübner ([1806: 64-65]) in his text referred to Figs 416 and 582-583 as belonging to ausonia, Fig. 416 representing the male, Figs. 582-583 the female. However, only Figs 582-583 can be attributed to ausonia, since for Fig. 416 Hübner had previously used (in [1800]) the name “belia” in the caption of Pl. Pap 83. The latter specimen must be regarded as a syntype of Euchloe esperi Kirby, 1871 (see below)].

b) Since the taxonomic interpretation of Hübner’s pictures is far from being unequivocal, because differences between adults of the 1 st and 2 nd generation of both the eastern and the western ‘dappled whites’ are strong, and since truly diagnostic species-specific differences are found only in the preimaginal stages (see Back 1979) and in DNA COI sequences (see Back et al. 2011), this name was taken to represent each of the already mentioned taxa, at various taxonomic ranks, depending on authors. More precisely, the name [Papilio] ausonia Hübner, [1804] was applied either i) to the ‘western dappled white’ (Ochsenheimer 1808, Staudinger 1901, etc.), or ii) to the ‘mountain dappled white’ (Kirby 1871, Rothschild 1914, Oberthür 1914, Hemming 1931, Bernardi 1945, 1947, Forster & Wohlfart 1955, Higgins 1975, 1980), or finally iii) to the ‘eastern dappled white’ (Verity 1923, 1947).

Summarising, it is exclusively on the subjective interpretation of Hübner’s figures and on the derivation of its name from the land where the ancient people of the Ausoni used to live, i.e. in central and southern Italy, that [Papilio] ausonia Hübner, [1804] is now considered the correct name to identify the butterfly colloquially known as the ‘eastern dappled white’.