A quantitative analysis of the wing outlines of owlflies (Insecta: Neuroptera: Ascalaphidae)

作者：Wen Hui; Yang Heping; Wang Xinli^*

来源：Animal Cells and Systems, 2015, 19(2): 149-155.

DOI：10.1080/19768354.2015.1014522

• wing outline
• quantitative description
• identification
• elliptic Fourier analysis
• owlflies

We quantitatively described and analyzed variation in the wing outlines of owlflies using 135 forewings and 135 hindwings from eight species in five genera. We captured and digitized images of the wing outlines from 135 individual specimens and subjected them to Elliptic Fourier analysis to produce matrices of Fourier coefficients based on 20 harmonics. The first five principal components extracted from the Fourier coefficient matrices described the wing outlines, explaining 94.87% of the total forewing variation and 95.06% of the total hindwing variation. Relationships among species were estimated using multivariate analysis of variance, principal component analysis, and cluster analysis. The results indicated highly significant differences in the wing outlines among the eight owlfly species. Pair-wise comparisons indicated significant differences between 96% of the species pairs based on the forewing outlines and between 100% of the species pairs based on the hindwing outlines. The results of the cluster analysis were partially consistent with the existing classification system of Ascalaphidae. Our results show that quantitative data of wing outlines can effectively differentiate Libelloides from the other four owlfly genera.

• 出版日期2015-3-4
• 单位中国农业大学