engleski

Cladistic analysis of diagnostic characters of wide-nosed pygmy grasshoppers (Orthoptera: Tetrigidae: Cladonotinae)

Bolívar envisioned Cladonotinae as a subfamily composed of species bearing broad scutellum, distinguished from other subfamilies by other less noticeable morphological characteristics. Although many traits are used today to show that new species do not belong to other subfamilies, the broad scutellum is almost the only trait used to justify the placement of the newly described species in the Cladonotinae subfamily. Therefore, subfamily Cladonotinae contains species of extremely different morphologies, the only similarity being relatively wide scutellum, although that does not apply to all species. This thesis cladistically analyzed almost every historically used morphological characteristic of individuals of the subfamily Cladonotinae in order to show which characters are potentially good indicators of holophyletic taxa within the subfamily. Results show that characters of pronotum, mostly projections, are weak indicators of holophyletic taxa. The properties that have proven to be the best candidates for further research into the relationship between morphology and the actual state of evolutionary relationships are the properties of legs. The exclusive use of morphology to describe and determine the species of the subfamily Cladonotinae has been shown to give results of questionable correctness. Many species placed in Cladonotinae do not show morphological similarities to other Cladonotinae species, hence further molecular research is necessary to determine which characters are good practical indicators of species belonging to the Cladonotinae subfamily.

taxonomy, polyphyly, phylogeny, morphology

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