| PRESENTATION INFO |
| TITLE: |
The velvet ants (Hymenoptera: Mutillidae) of Trinidad: a springboard for biodiversity studies in South America |
| TYPE: |
Presentation |
| Abstract: |
Velvet ants are sexually dimorphic wasps, with winged males and wingless females. This dimorphism skews biodiversity estimates, because many species are known only from one sex. Over 1,300 Neotropical species are named, but fewer than 5% are known from both sexes. It is unclear how many species are yet undiscovered and how many named 'taxa' are simply the opposite sex of another species; 1,300 species could be an under- or overestimate of biodiversity. To shed light on Neotropical diversity, we studied a small geographically isolated mutillid fauna. The island of Trinidad is less than 5,000 km² in area and has only 20 recorded species (only four known from both sexes). In this study, we examined over 1000 specimens from Trinidad. We found 12 undescribed species and six range extensions. We also associated the males and females of 15 species, but only two of these required synonymy because both sexes were named. The majority of newly associationed species (n=8) had previously described females and males that were new to science. Most species from this study are not endemic to Trinidad, making these discoveries useful for studies throughout northern South America. New species and new records (n=18) outnumbered synonymies from sex associations (n=2); previous species counts in Trinidad underestimated biodiversity. We hypothesize that biodiversity is underestimated throughout the Neotropics.
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