Taxonomic revision and cladistic analysis of Caciomorpha Thomson, 1864 (Coleoptera, Cerambycidae, Lamiinae, Anisocerini)

Abstract

Caciomorpha is a genre from the tribe Anisocerini (Coleoptera, Cerambycidae, Lamiinae), with seven described species, distributed in Central and South America. The studies for the group are poor and outdated, in fact the last taxonomic study was done by Galileo & Martins (1998), where they studied and complemented the available information, of the group, at that time. Regarding phylogenetic relationships, they are unknown, because it has been never done a phylogenetic analysis to this particular group. Updated knowledge of the taxonomy and systematics of this genre has a great importance, especially to contribute in the expansion of the biodiversity information, considering that Lamiinae has species with economic importance. Thus, the objective of this project is to execute a taxonomic revision of the genre Caciomorpha and its phylogenetic analysis, aiming to prove the monophyly of the genre and propose phylogenetic hypothesis between its species. To achieve this objective, all of the known species will be studied and redescribed, possible new species described and, from a detailed morphological study, it will be made a character matrix to the realization of the cladistics analysis. This project will be done in a maximum of two years, in which we pretend to produce a magister thesis, as well as scientific publications about the family Cerambycidae. (AU)