Revisão taxonômica e análise filogenética da família neotropical Hedylidae (Lepidoptera Hedyloidea)

Abstract

Hedylidae occurs exclusively in the Neotropical region and historically has been classified as a subfamily of Geometridae. This work presents a treatment on the morphology of the family in order to use new characters which may permit the analysis of phylogenetic relationships among the species. The family is redescribed using these new characters and the species are redescribed or described using standardized descriptions. An identification key for the genera and species and new geographical records are presented. The primary types of most of the species were examined. A total of 111 adults characters, being 64 from male specimens, 19 from female specimens and 28 from both sexes, were used for the phylogenetic analysis. The out-groups used in the analysis, all considered sister-groups of Hedyloidea, included two species of Papilionoidea, and one species of Hesperioidea. The phylogenetic relationships were estimated based on cladistics, through the use of a heuristic search. For support of clades it was used Bremer index. The analysis resulted in two equally parsimonious cladograms, with 610 steps (CI = 0.33; RI = 0.69; RRI = 0.23) and strict consensus with 612 steps, having a CI, RI and RRI equal to that of the two most parsimonious cladograms. Based on this phylogenetic analysis the following taxa were revalidated: Hedyle Guenée, 1857, gen rev. Phellinodes, Guenée, 1857, gen. rev., Phellinodes interrupta Warren, 1904, sp. rev., P. cellulata Dognin, 1911, sp. rev. and P. zikani Prout, 1932, sp. rev. Seven new species were described. Hedylidae now consists of three genera and 46 species. For each taxon was presented the synonymic list, biological data, seasonal and geographic records and information on the types.