Plebejus (Vacciniina) fergana nikolaii Lamas, 2008

Lamas, Gerardo, 2008, Twelve new species-group replacement names and further nomenclatural notes on Lycaenidae (Lepidoptera), Zootaxa 1848 (1), pp. 47-56 : 50

11. Plebejus (Vacciniina) fergana nikolaii Lamas , nom. nov.

= Vacciniina fergana rubini Churkin, 2006: 10 , pls. 7–8, figs. 21–23. Junior secondary homonym of Agriades glandon rubini Churkin, 2005: 20 , pls. 3–4, figs. 25–28.

Both Agriades Hübner, 1819 and Vacciniina Tutt, 1909 are often regarded as junior subjective synonyms or subgenera of Plebejus Kluk, 1780 (e.g. Hesselbarth et al., 1995; Gorbunov, 2001), although Koçak & Seven (1998) consider them instead subgenera of Polyommatus Latreille, 1804 (Gorbunov [loc. cit.] treats Polyommatus as subgenus of Plebejus ). On the other hand, phylogenetic resolution at the generic level for Eliot's (1973) ' Polyommatus section', comprising some 33 "valid genera" (reduced to nine by Bálint & Johnson, 1997), has not been achieved yet. Given this state of affairs, it is probably best for the present to consider Agriades and Vacciniina as nothing more than subgenera of Plebejus .

Etymology: Named after Nikolai Rubin, collector of the original type series of Vacciniina fergana rubini . A noun in the genitive case.