Odonata biodiversity: a study on integrative and morphological taxonomy with emphasis on females

• Autor(a) principal: Vilela, Diogo Silva
• Data de Publicação: 2020
• Tipo de documento: Tese
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Biblioteca Digital de Teses e Dissertações da USP
• Texto Completo: https://www.teses.usp.br/teses/disponiveis/59/59131/tde-15042024-150550/
• topic: Coenagrionidae; Coenagrionidae; Damselflies; Dicteriadidae; Dicteriadidae; Heteragrionidae; Heteragrionidae; Libélulas; Neotropical; Neotropical; Philogeniidae; Philogeniidae

Odonata females are, in general, historically neglected in taxonomic descriptions in regard to its morphology, thus, depleted from essential information such as definition of reliable diagnostic characters that allows female identification needless of male association. With the general objective of collaborating with the advance of female taxonomic knowledge in the order, establishing reliable diagnostic characters and revisiting species, this thesis had the specific objectives: revision of the Neotropical genera Franciscobasis Machado & Bedê and Minagrion Santos; description of the ontogenetic coloration changes in females of Ischnura capreolus; description of unknown females with optimized diagnostic characters that allow their identification in the absence of males; description of species new to science. The results presented here, shed a new light on the importance of diagnosing and correctly describing females in Odonata, altering the paradigm of coloration as a diagnostic character, and increasing taxonomic information through complete morphological and integrative assessment, all corroborated with evidence.