Superfamily Aeshnoidea

P. PESSACQ; A. DO LAGO CARVALHO

Keys to Neotropical Hexapoda, 4th Edition

Elsevier - Academic Press

Año: 2018; p. 367 - 377

The superfamily Aeshnoidea, as currently considered(e.g., Dijkstra et al., 2013), is composed of two familieswith very unequal species richness and distribution. Theseare the highly diverse and worldwide Aeshnidae (469species in 54 genera) and the Austropetaliidae, with its lowdiversity (10 species in 4 genera) and distribution restrictedto the Australian region and southern South America.Previously, the families Gomphidae and Petaluridae wereincluded within this superfamily, as shown in many traditionalcatalogs and general books on the order (e.g., Davies& Tobin, 1985; Silsby, 2001). In the most recent andcomprehensive phylogenetic analyses of Anisoptera, theclade composed of Aeshnidae and Austropetaliidae isalways justified as monophyletic (e.g., Bybee et al., 2008;Carle et al., 2015). In the analysis of Fleck et al. (2008), thePetaluridae was considered as its sister group. Thishypothesis was confirmed afterwards based on larvalcharacters (Fleck, 2011), with that monophyletic groupconsisting of three families named Siphonoprocta, which isa taxon not currently positioned in any classificatory hierarchicallevel.The diversity of Aeshnidae in the New World iscurrently listed as 154 species in 20 genera (16 endemic).Fifteen genera are present in the Neotropics, with 13predominantly having a Neotropical distribution. In total,133 species can be considered truly Neotropical, correspondingto 28% of the diversity of the family. Descriptionsof the ultimate instar larvae are available currently for 67species, including representatives of all 15 Neotropicalgenera. Such literature is variable in quality and accuracy,in part because there are examples of questionable attributionsfor species and genera not reared in the laboratoryfrom larvae to adult, hence, a revision of that literature isneeded.