COMPARATIVE WING MORPHOMETRICS OF SOME CALYPTRATE DIPTERA

Abstract

AbstractCanonical variate analysis and the generalized distance D2 statistic are useful ways of analyzing within and between variation in species. Little attempt has been made previously to quantify and assess the variation in calyptrate Diptera other than in descriptive terms. In this study, the variation was assessed for 11 species of muscoid Diptera and populations of the five calliphorid species were analyzed in greater detail. Nine morphometric characters of the wing were used. Most of the variance (93%) fell in the first three canonical variates for the species comparison, and emphasised shape attributes, although size was important. In particular, the position of vein R1, humeral vein h, and the discal cell suggested that the sarcophagid flies formed an intermediate group between the calliphorid and muscid flies examined. Size components were more important than shape components within species, and these differences between populations could not be related to a geographic cline.