Ectemnaspis or Psilopelmia? there is the dilemma

Abstract

The difficulty to define the species limits of Ectemnaspis or Psilopelmia arises from two opposite points of view from Coscarón (1984, 1987 y 1990) and Crosskey (1987). To de­fine the monophyly and the sister group of Ectemnaspis-Psik,)Pelmia the data from Cos­carón (1987) and Coscarón et al. (In press) were bootstrapped. To know the subgeneric po­sition two different information sources were used: morphology and chromosome banding. In the cladistic examination from morphologi­cal data, fourteen taxa were selected, which cover all the possibilities to be estimated as Psilopelmia or Ectemnaspis from both au­thors or have problems in the subgeneric po­sition. Forty-eight characters from larva, pupa, adult female and male were chosen. As a sister group, the species S. oviedoi- S. rivasi, S. pertinax and S. subpasllium were used. In the chromosome analysis, seven species and 12 characters were used: principal and sec­ondary markers from chromosome I -III. The species represent the bicoloratum, romanai and dinellii groups. As the sister group, it was selected the Simulium subgenus map. With the morphological and chromosomal data, separated and as a set, a parsimony cladistic analysis was conducted. The results show at least five independent units: romanai, bicoloratum, dinéllii, perflavum, and Psilo­pelmia. To be consistent with the actual no­manclature the sub-groups must get the sub­generic status.