Phylogeny of endopterygote insects, the most successful lineage of living organisms

Abstract

The monophyly of the Endopterygota is supported primarily by the specialized larva without external wing buds and with degradable eyes, as well as by the quiescence of the last immature (pupal) stage; a specialized morphology of the latter is not an endopterygote groundplan trait. There is weak support for the basal endopterygote splitting event being between a Neuropterida + Coleoptera clade and a Mecopterida + Hymenoptera clade; a fully sclerotized sitophore plate in the adult is a newly recognized possible groundplan autapomorphy of the latter. The molecular evidence for a Strepsiptera + Diptera clade is differently interpreted by advocates of parsimony and maximum likelihood analyses of sequence data, and the morphological evidence for the monophyly of this clade is ambiguous. The basal diversification patterns within the principal endopterygote clades (\orders\) are succinctly reviewed. The truly species-rich clades are almost consistently quite subordinate. The identification of \key innovations promoting evolutionary success (in terms of large species numbers) is fraught with difficulties.