taxonomic characters and genitalia

Doug Yanega dyanega at pop.ucr.edu
Mon Mar 22 19:48:15 EST 1999


>i hope that nobody assumed that i think genitalic characters have
>no value in butterfly and moth taxonomy. my view is that these characters
>are not always conclusive - differences do not always mean that more than
>one species is involved and similarities do not always mean that only one
>species is involved. sometimes the genitalic info points to a different
>taxonomic interpretation than that which flows from genetic info.

Actually, of all the insect groups I'm familiar with, the only one where
I've seen clear examples where genitalia are not informative due to
*excessive* variation (as opposed to too little) is in butterflies. The
book (I forget the authors now) on Swallowtails of the Americas gives
illustrations of the claspers of many of the species, and they are
*amazingly* variable, to the point where one would have no hope of IDing a
species based on the claspers alone. Maybe there is less selection on
non-intromittent genitalic features, but even this is less than
satisfactory as an explanation. It's certainly a glaring exception to the
rule.

Peace,


Doug Yanega       Dept. of Entomology           Entomology Research Museum
Univ. of California - Riverside, Riverside, CA 92521
phone: (909) 787-4315
                  http://www.icb.ufmg.br/~dyanega/
  "There are some enterprises in which a careful disorderliness
        is the true method" - Herman Melville, Moby Dick, Chap. 82



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