Surroundings of the Sarginae: the odd Afrotropical genus Gongrosargus and a broader sampling of Chrysochlorinae, the sargine putative sister-group

Abstract

One of the important unanswered phylogenetic questions in the Stratiomyidae is whether the subfamilies Hermetiinae, Chrysochlorininae and Sarginae compose a clade, and how these three groups are related to each other. Although a group with these three subfamilies has been recovered by some authors, the morphological and molecular support is weak and controversy. Preliminary results of the ongoing PhD project recovered the Afrotropical genus Gongrosargus as sister-group of the set of all remaining Sarginae genera, with a higher clade in fact also including the subfamilies Hermetiinae and Chrysochlorininae. This is particularly interesting since the genus Gongrosargus differs from all remaining Sarginae by having more than five antennal flagellomeres and some wing venation characters, which makes it similar to the Chrysochlorininae. This BEPE project addresses the particular problem of the sister-group of Sarginae, with a study of Gongrosargus and some of the genera of Chrysochlorininae and Hermetiinae, as they might be closest relatives to the Sarginae. This is quite central to the PhD project since the entire phylogenetic construction of the Sarginae depends on a proper rooting of the tree outgroups. The California State Collection of Arthropods, Sacramento, California, United States (CSCA), of the California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA), not only has a major collection, with representatives of most Chrysochlorininae and Sarginae from all over the world. The most important active specialist in Stratiomyidae worldwide, Dr. Martin Hauser, is a researcher there. As side products, this study will redeem a taxonomic revision of the genus Gongrosargus and allow the inclusion of additional rare genera and species of Chrysochlorininae and Hermetiinae in the analysis. (AU)