Cladistics of the assassin bug genus Rasahus Amyot and Serville (Heteroptera: Reduviidae: Peiratinae), with a cladistic biogeographic analysis of the Neotropical subregion.

MORRONE, J.J.; COSCARON, M.C.

ZOOLOGISCHE MEDEDELINGEN

National Museum of Natural History

Lugar: Leiden; Año: 1998 vol. 72 p. 75 - 89

0024-0672

The assassin bug genus Rasahus Amyot & Serville (Heteroptera: Reduviidae: Peiratinae) comprises 26 Neotropical species. A cladistic analysis of tje genus was carried out using 63 characters from external morphology, body vestiture, and male and female genitali, sith the species considered as terminal taxa. The analysis yielde 149 equally parsimonious cladograms, each with 206 steps, CI = 0.35, and RI = 0.60; the successive weighting procedure resulted in eight cladograms (CI = 0.79 and RI = 0.91). In the strict consensus cladogram, two major clades are delimited: one comprising the species R.rufiventris, R. hamatus, R. arcitenens, R. arcuiger, R. amapaensis, R. thoracicus, R. biguttatus, R. argentinensis, R. limai, R. grandis, and R. angulatus; and the other with R. castaneus, R. aeneus, R. scutellaris, R. maculipennis, R. brasiliensis, R. sulcicollis, R. surinamensis, R. albomaculatus, R. guttatipennis, R. atratus, R. peruensis, R. costarricensis, R. bifurcatus, R. flavovittatus, and R. paraguayensis. A cladistic biogeographic analysis of the provinces of the Neotropical subregion, considering distributional data of the species of Rasahus and three other genera of Peiratinae (Eidmannia, Melanolestes, and Thymbreus) was carried out. Four general area cladogram (=implying fewer iens of error) was obtained with COMPONENT 2.0 minimizing the number of leaves added, and shows the sequence (Desierto, (Catinga, (Cerrado, (Chacoan, (Caribbean, (Amazonian), (Paranaense, Atlantic))))). This sequence of area relationshipis congruent with the history previously hypothesized for the subregion, where the development of an open the aridification induced by the gradual uplift of the Andes, separated the former Amazonian forest in a northwestern part (Caribbean plus Amazonian provinces) and a southeastern part (Paranaense plus Atlantic provinces).