Network relationships among extant penguins

GIANNINI, N.P.; BERTELLI, S.

Seattle

Congreso; One Hundred and Nineteenth Stated Meeting of the American Ornithologists' Union; 2001

American Ornithologists' Union

A preliminary phylogeny of all the 17 currently recognized, extant species of penguins was estimated on the basis of 62 integumentary characters, including bill shape, parts, and color; plumage pattem of the head and body; podoteca; iris color; plumage pattern of the first and second plumage of the chick; and plumage pattern of the juvenile. The analysis was developed äs a network without an outgroup, given the difficulty of cornparison of this type of characters w ith the dosest all!es of penguins. A parsimony analysis with implied weights of characters was done using Pee-Wee program by Goloboff (1993 distributed by author). Network resolution is complete and very well supported; a similar analysis not using weights yielded a similar topotogy. If the root is placed on Eudyptula äs suggested by fossil records, all genera but Pygoscelis are monophyletic. Megadyptes is the sister taxa to all Eudyptes. Spheniscus mendiculus (the Galapagos penguin) is the basal form of the genus. The relations within genera are better supported than the relations among genera