A Cladistic Analysis of Inaequalium (Coscarón & Wygodzinsky, 1984), with Information on Geographical Distribution (Diptera: Simuliidae)

• Main Authors: Strieder MN, Py-Daniel V
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Instituto Oswaldo Cruz, Ministério da Saúde 2002-01-01
• Series: Memórias do Instituto Oswaldo Cruz.
• Subjects: Neotropical; aquatic insects; black flies; Simuliidae; Inaequalium
• Online Access: http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0074-02762002000100010

The black flies of the genus Inaequalium present a Neotropical distribution, with Panama at the northern limit, and the Argentinian pampas at the southern, but do not occur in the Central Amazon. This study offers a cladistic analysis establishing a hypothesis of relationships between the species of Inaequalium. A total of 37 characters have been considered in order to establish the hypothetic phylogenetic relationships. Cerqueirellum (Py-Daniel, 1983) was considered as outgroup. Data were analyzed using Henning 86 version 1.5. Wich the ie* command and implicit enumeration a unique possible cladogram was obtained in Inaequalium with 52 steps, and a CI of 0.76 and RI of 0.81. Two well-defined clades was obtained in the resulting cladogram, the "botulibranchium" species-group, includes I. travassosi, I. souzalopesi, I. botulibranchium and I. petropoliense, and the "inaequale" species-group, includes I. rappae, I. nahimi, I. inaequale, I. leopoldense, I. subnigrum, I. diversibranchium, I. mariavulcanoae, I. nogueirai, I. beaupertuyi, I. clavibranchium and I. subclavibranchium.