First Phylogeny of Pseudolychnuris Reveals Its Polyphyly and a Staggering Case of Convergence at the Andean Paramos (Lampyridae: Lampyrini)

Abstract

South America is likely the cradle of several New World firefly lineages but remains largely understudied. Despite several advances in firefly systematics in the Neotropical region, the Andean region has been largely unstudied for over a century. The Colombian Páramos are a critically threatened biodiversity hotspot that houses several endemic species, including the firefly genus Pseudolychnuris, with two species—P. vittata and P. suturalis. Here, by analyzing the phylogenetic relationships of Pseudolychnuris, we found that this genus is polyphyletic. Pseudolychnuris vittata and P. suturalis were found to be distantly related despite the striking similarity in outline and color pattern of males and females. We redescribe Pseudolychnuris and its type species P. vittata. Moreover, we revalidate Alychnus Kirsch, 1865 stat. rev. to accommodate A. suturalis comb. nov., also redescribed here. We provide updated distribution maps and report field observations for both monotypic genera. Since adults visit flowers and interact with pollen and nectar, Pseudolychnuris and Alychnus may be occasional pollinators of Andean-endemic plants, a phenomenon previously neglected. Our findings reveal an interesting case of convergence between Pseudolychnuris and Alychnus—probably associated with life in the Páramos—and shed light on character evolution in the Photinini lineage of fireflies.

Phylogeny of Scissicauda Species, with Eight New Species, including the First Photinini Fireflies with Biflabellate Antennae (Coleoptera: Lampyridae)

“…In contrast, our phylogenetic analyses recovered a monophyletic Scissicauda sensu nov. based on interesting synapomorphic traits of the aedeagus (i.e., Character 66:1, Character 68:2, Character 91:1, Character 92:1, and Character 104:1), many of which are newly delimited here. These results highlight the value of terminalia and genitalic traits in Photinini taxonomy at the genus-and species levels, as found elsewhere [24].…”

“…We built a matrix with 38 taxa scored for 108 characters following the logical basis given in [22] in MESQUITE [23], reanalyzing 93 characters from [5] and [24], in addition to 15 new characters (see Results; Supplementary Materials S2). To compare the outcomes of different phylogenetic approaches, we performed maximum parsimony (MP) analyses in TNT [25] and Bayesian inference (BI) in MrBayes 3.2.7a [26,27].…”

New world lampyrid types at the Zoological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences

“…However, the article 12.2.6 of the International Code for Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN 1999) ensures combined descriptions for monotypic genera and their respective species described before 1961. Therefore, by the provisions of article 12.2.6, the publication date of Pseudolychnuris vittata is 1853, and not 1854 as given in Ladino-Peñuela et al (2022).…”