A phylogeny of the family Fanniidae Schnabl (Insecta:Diptera:Calyptratae) based on adult morphological characters, with special reference to the Austral species of the genus Fannia

Abstract

The present study proposed a phylogenetic hypothesis of the family Fanniidae based on a cladistic analysis using characters from adult external morphology and female and male terminalia. The main purpose of this study was to clarify the phylogenetic position of newly described or poorly known species, mostly from southern South America, the Neotropics, Africa, Australia and New Zealand. In total, 151 characters from adult male and female external morphology and terminalia were scored for 78 species of Fanniidae. Ten continuous characters were included and analysed as such. Three genera of Fanniidae and all the species-groups and subgroups proposed for the genus Fannia, except for the admirabilis-group and the setifer-subgroup were included as terminal taxa. An heuristic parsimony analysis under implied weights was performed. The analysis recovered the monophyly of the Fanniidae and the genus Fannia, as well as the monophyly of several species-groups within Fannia. Male and female external morphological characters were, in general, highly homoplasious, whereas characters from male terminalia showed low level of homoplasy and provided resolution at suprageneric nodes and species-groups.