Melolontha

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iMelolontha
A cockchafer (Melolontha melolontha) at take-off
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia Phylum: Arthropoda Class: Insecta Order: Coleoptera Family: Scarabaeidae Subfamily: Melolonthinae Genus: Melolontha Fabricius, 1775
Species
Many, see text

Melolontha is a genus of beetles in the family of the dung beetles. The European cockchafers belong to this genus.

[edit] Taxonomy

Linnaeus called the European cockchafer Scarabaeus melolontha. Geoffroy St Hilaire used Melolontha as a genus name (1762), but his book has been suppressed by the International Commission of Zoological Nomenclature, and the authority for the name is the later (1775) publication by Fabricius [1].

[edit] Species

The following is a list of species within the genus Melolontha:

• Melolontha aceris Faldermann, 1835
• Melolontha afflicta Ballion, 1870
• Melolontha albida Frivaldszky, 1835
• Melolontha anita Reitter, 1902
• Melolontha argus Burmeister 1855
• Melolontha bifurcata (Brenske, 1896)
• Melolontha chinensis (Guerin, 1838)
• Melolontha ciliciensis Petrovitz
• Melolontha flabellata Sharp, 1876
• Melolontha frater, Indonesia, Arrow 1913
• Melolontha fuscotestacea Kraatz, 1887
• Melolontha guttigera Sharp, 1876
• Melolontha hippocastani Fabricius, 1801, European Forest Cockchafer
• Melolontha incana Motchulsky, 1853
• Melolontha insulana Burmeister 1939?
• Melolontha japonica Burmeister, 1855
• Melolontha kraatzi Reitter 1906
• Melolontha melolontha (Linnaeus, 1758), Common European Cockchafer
• Melolontha papposa Illiger, 1803
• Melolontha pectoralis, European Large Cockchafer
• Melolontha rubiginosa
• Melolontha rufocrassa Fairmaire, 1889
• Melolontha satsumaenis Nijma and Kinoshita
• Melolontha virescens (Brenske, 1896)

Note: this list should be verified by an entomologist; it may contain duplicates (when a species is known under more than one scientific name) or obsolete scientific names, or it may be incomplete. The taxonomic authorities also have not been verified.