180 FRANCIS HEMMING 



EUPLEA Kirby, [1879], in Zool. Rec. 14 (year 1877) (Ins.) : 128 (an Incorrect Subsequent 

 Spelling of Euploea Fabricius, 1807). 



EUPLOEA [Illiger], 1807, Allgem. Lit. Ztg, [Jena] Halle 1807 (No. 2) : 1180, 1181. Type- 

 species by selection by Hemming (1964, Annot. lep. (4) : 19) : Limnas nemertes Hiibner, 

 [1807], Samml. exot. Schmett. 1 : pi. [26]. 



The name Euploea [Illiger] is one of twelve well-known names in general use as from the 

 date of their publication by Fabricius in 1807, which it was discovered in 1939 had been 

 published with different included species in an anonymous paper of Illiger's that slightly 

 predated that of Fabricius. A full account of this unfortunate discovery has been given in the 

 note on the name Apatura [Illiger] (the first in alphabetical order of the names concerned). 

 It is necessary here only to note that in the interest of nomenclatorial stability the Commission 

 was asked to suppress under its Plenary Powers all these Illiger names, thereby validating their 

 Fabrician counterparts. This application was approved by the Commission, its decision 

 being promulgated in its Opinion 232 (1954, Opin. int. Comm. zool. Nom. 4 : 249-274). 

 In that Opinion the name Euploea [Illiger], was suppressed for the purposes both of the Law 

 of Priority and of the Law of Homonymy and was placed on the Official Index of Rejected and 

 Invalid Generic Names in Zoology as Name No. 41. 



EUPLOEA Fabricius, 1807, Mag.f. Insektenk. (Illiger) 6 : 280. Type-species by designation by 

 the Commission under the Plenary Powers in Opinion 163 : Papilio corus Fabricius, 1793, 

 Ent. syst. 3 (1) : 41. 



Fabricius cited three nominal species as belonging to the genus Euploea ; from these Scudder 

 in 1875 (Proc. amer. Acad. Arts Sci., Boston 10 : 172) selected the second, Papilio similis 

 Linnaeus, 1758 (Syst. Nat. (ed. 10) 1 : 479) to be the type-species of this genus. Three years 

 later (1878, /. linn. Soc. Lond., Zool. 14 : 291) Butler selected as the type-species of this genus 

 the nominal species Papilio core Cramer, [1780] (Uitl. Kapellen 3 (23) : 133, pi. 266, figs E, F.) 

 Quite apart from Scudder's earlier action, this selection would have been invalid, because it 

 was not one of the species cited by Fabricius as belonging to his genus. Butler did not 

 realize this because he erroneously identified Papilio core Cramer with Papilio corus Fabricius, 

 which was the third of three species originally included by Fabricius. Butler's mistake was 

 noted by Moore who in 1883 (Proc. zool. Soc. Lond. 1883 : 288) specified Papilio corus Fabricius 

 as the type-species. With negligible exceptions, very few in number, the name Euploea has 

 been used as though the type-species were Papilio corus Fabricius by all writers since the 

 publication of Moore's paper in 1883. 



In these circumstances nothing would be more confusing than the fact that by Scudder's 

 selection the genus Euploea Fabricius is a Danaid, whereas it is universally understood as being 

 a Euploeid. It was for this reason that, when I was preparing my book on the Generic 

 Names of the Holarctic Butterflies (1934), I included (: 24) a recommendation that the Com- 

 mission should be asked to prevent the otherwise unavoidable and widespread confusion by 

 using its Plenary Powers to designate Papilio corus Fabricius as the type-species of the genus 

 Euploea, thereby providing a valid basis for the usage of this name in the enormous literature 

 which has grown up around it. This application was submitted to the Commission in October 

 1934, an d in due course the action proposed was approved by the Commission. Various 

 causes contributed to delay in the promulgation of the Commission's decision which did not 

 take place until 1945 when it was published in Opinion 163 (Opin. int. Comm. zool. Nom. 

 2 : 335-346). In the same Opinion the name Euploea Fabricius, 1807, defined as above, was 

 placed on the Official List of Generic Names in Zoology as Name No. 611. 



After the foregoing application had been submitted to the Commission it was discovered 

 that certain of the generic names published by Fabricius in the Mag. f. Insektenk. had been 

 published a few weeks earlier by Illiger in an anonymous paper in the Allgem. Lit. Ztg the 

 names so published being employed for the most part in a sense quite different from that in 

 which they were used in Fabricius's well-known paper. One of the names so published by 

 Illiger was Euploea, the publication of this name making the well-known name Euploea 



