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Zoological Science
Abstract
Species of Temnomastax have wide morphological similarities, and differentiation is usually based on male and female genitalia. In this study, we tested whether morphometric differences contribute to differentiation of species of Temnomastax, proposed an identification key for males, and morphometrically studied the sexual dimorphism of Temnomastax hamus and Temnomastax ricardoi. Analysis was performed using 204 specimens belonging to six species; fifteen morphometric variables were used. We used MANOVA and ANOVA to test the morphometric differences among species and Discriminant Analysis for sexual distinction. Temnomastax sp. nov. 1 had the highest values in ⅓ of all analyzed variables used for morphometric distinction of males, followed by Temnomastax latens, T. ricardoi and Temnomastax sp. nov. 2, and T. hamus and Temnomastax tigris. Two groups were formed by the MANOVA, with length of body, length of hind femur, and length of tegmen as the main variables that distinguished them. Overall, females of T. hamus and T. ricardoi presented higher averages for measurement values used in morphometric distinction between sexes than conspecific males and based on discriminant analysis we found significant differences between sexes. There are significant differences in morphometric variations and the ratio between body length and tegmen length provided reliable evidence for differentiation among species, which can be used as a valid tool that complements the identification of Temnomastax species.
The authors thank Dr. Miguel Monné and Dra. Marcela Monné (MNRJ — Rio de Janeiro), Dra. Cristiane Vieira de Assis Pujol Luz (UCB — Brasilia), and Dr. José Roberto Pujol Luz (UnB — Brasilia) for providing specimens for this study; Dra. Juliana Chamorro Rengifo for commenting on the first version of the manuscript; and two anonymous reviewers for their valuable suggestions to improve this work. Instituto Chico Mendes de Biodiversidade for providing the collection license. The first author also thanks CAPES (Process Number 1381670) for financial support from 2014 to 2016 during master's studies in Animal Biology (PPG BA), and Fundect for financial support during field work and technical support grant (FUNDECT/CAPES n° 44/2014 PAPOS-MS).
The authors declare that they have no competing interests.
RO and RA conceived and designed the study and realized the collections. RO measured specimens and organized the data. RA performed the statistical analysis. RO and RA wrote the manuscript.
Supplementary material for this article is available online (URL: http://www.bioone.org/doi/suppl/10.2108/zs170088).
Supplementary Table S1. List of specimens used in this study with their respective collection site and voucher and/or collection where the specimens are deposited.
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