The arboreal Neotropical “thorellii” clade of Centruroides Marx, 1890, bark scorpions (Buthidae C.L. Koch, 1837) is revised, using a novel approach to species delimitation. A phylogenetic analysis, based on 112 morphological characters and 1078 aligned DNA nucleotides from the mitochondrial Cytochrome c Oxidase Subunit I (COI) gene, provided framework for placing singletons geographically dispa...

DNA barcoding is a powerful approach for characterizing species of organisms, especially those with almost identical morphological features, thereby helping to to establish phylogenetic relationships and reveal evolutionary histories. In this study, we chose a 648-bp segment of the mitochondrial gene, cytochrome c oxidase subunit 1 (COI), as a standard barcode region to establish phylogenetic r...

Mosquitoes are insects of the Diptera, Nematocera, and Culicidae families, some species of which are important disease vectors. Identifying mosquito species based on morphological characteristics is difficult, particularly the identification of specimens collected in the field as part of disease surveillance programs. Because of this difficulty, we constructed DNA barcodes of the cytochrome c o...

This study describes a new species of the genus Diopatra Audouin and Milne-Edwards, 1833. Diopatra micrura sp. nov., was found on the western and the southern coast of Portugal and can be distinguished from other Diopatra species by a characteristic striped colour pattern of the antennae and palps. Other diagnostic morphological characteristics include ventral parapodial lobes, crescentic nucha...

The identification of whitefly species in adult stage is problematic. Morphological differentiation of pupae is one of the better methods for determining identity of species, but it may vary depending on the host plant on which they develop which can lead to misidentifications and erroneous naming of new species. Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) fragment amplified from the mitochondrial cytochro...

Nuclear mitochondrial pseudogenes (numts) are nonfunctional copies of mtDNA in the nucleus that have been found in major clades of eukaryotic organisms. They can be easily coamplified with orthologous mtDNA by using conserved universal primers; however, this is especially problematic for DNA barcoding, which attempts to characterize all living organisms by using a short fragment of the mitochon...

This study reveals extensive phenotypic convergence based on the non-monophyly of genera and morphospecies of testate (shelled) amoebae. Using two independent markers, small subunit ribosomal DNA (ssu-rDNA) and mitochondrial cytochrome oxidase I (COI), we demonstrate discordance between morphology and molecules for 'core Nebela' species (Arcellinida; Amoebozoa). Prior work using just a single l...

The fiddler crab Austruca occidentalis is a dominant species in mangrove forests along the East African coast. It enhances soil aeration and, through its engineering activities, makes otherwise-inaccessible food available for other marine organisms. Despite its importance, the habitat of A. occidentalis is threatened by human activities. Clearing the mangroves for salt farming and selective log...

The fruit fly Bactrocera caudata is a pest species of economic importance in Asia. Its larvae feed on the flowers of Cucurbitaceae such as Cucurbita moschata. To-date it is distinguished from related species based on morphological characters. Specimens of B. caudata from Peninsular Malaysia and Indonesia (Bali and Lombok) were analysed using the partial DNA sequences of cytochrome c oxidase sub...