Chrysopodes (Neosuarius)

Tauber, Catherine & Tauber, Maurice, 2010, Two new endemic species of Chrysopodes (Neosuarius) (Neuroptera, Chrysopidae) from the Galapagos Islands, ZooKeys 42 (42), pp. 47-78 : 49-50

Chrysopodes (Neosuarius) of the Galápagos Islands

The Galápagos Chrysopodes (Neosuarius) are generally of a similar, relatively medium size; wing length ranges from ̴ 10.2–13.7mm. They are also alike in coloration, i.e. tan to light brown bodies with darker brown mottled markings, cream-colored to light brownish heads with dark brown facial markings, hyaline wings with a relatively narrow costal area and white and dark brown venation in a typical C. (Neosuarius) pattern (Tauber, in press).

In the above, and several other internal and external traits, the Galápagos Chrysopodes (Neosuarius) are most similar to the flavescens group of C. (Neosuarius) species on the mainland (Tauber, in press). However, our study here shows that the Galápagos specimens share a suite of unique genital characters that distinguish them from the mainland species. For example, they are the only C. (Neosuarius) in which the males have a pair of large, eversible pouches (probably pheromonal) that extend posterolaterally from the membrane at the tip of the terminal abdominal sternite, and a pair of elongate, setose, ducts that originate within the gonosaccus (immediately below the mediuncus) (Figs 9c, 10c, 11c). The interior of the ducts appears grainy; the ducts may be glandular.

Like other species in the flavescens group, the Galápagos females have a distinctive, tubular spermatheca; the spermathecal duct is short and lightly sclerotized (Fig. 13). The bursa is leathery and moderately large (it covers the spermatheca), and the bursal glands are bulbous and bear elongate accessory ducts (Fig. 13). The spermathecae of the three endemic Chrysopodes (N.) species are unique in that they have a very small mesal swelling and are only slightly bent; they lack the bean-shaped enlargements, coils and sharp bends that characterize the spermathecae of the mainland species.

These numerous synapomorphies provide strong evidence that the extant Chrysopodes (Neosuarius) on the various Galápagos islands have a common evolutionary history of differentiation from an ancestral species that immigrated to the Galápagos from the South American mainland.