., -r ,■:./.:: 165 



Species Relationships of the Ageneiosidae 



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f Relationships within the family Ageneiosidae were evaluated by analyzing 35 

 morphological characters listed in Table 5. The data on the morphological features 

 with two to four character states were analyzed initially using the MULPARS 

 algorithm of PAUP, which searches for equally parsimonious trees by branch- 

 swapping routines (global branch swapping was used). The number of trees 

 estimated by MULPARS was verified by using the branch and bound algorithm, 

 which is guaranteed of finding the most parsimonious tree(s). A hypothetical 

 ancestor polarized as plesiomorphic for all characters was included. In addition, 

 data were included for single species belonging to three of the four outgroup genera 

 hypothesized by Ferraris (1988) to be the sister taxon of ageneiosids; Trachefyopterus 

 galeatus, Entomocorus gameroi, and Auchenipterus michalis (members of Ferraris' 

 Auchenipterini). Ageneiosus mannoratus and A. brevifilis were coded as the same 

 OTU for the cladistic analysis. The data matrix used for numerical analysis is 

 presented in Table 6. Characters with more than two character states (i.e., meristic 

 counts) were designated as unordered. 



Initially I included relative body size and the presence or absence of 

 swimbladder caecae in the analysis; the polarity and significance of both of these 

 characters are of questionable value in evaluating relationships among ageneiosids, 

 and added considerable homoplasy to the analysis, so they were deleted from the 

 matrix. Input of the remaining data matrix into PAUP resulted in six equally 

 parsimonious trees of 54 steps with a consistency index (CI) of 0.722. The relatively 

 low CI indicates that approximately 28% of the character-state changes required by 

 the alternate tree topologies of the data set represent character reversal or 

 convergence (homoplasy). Examination of the six trees revealed that they differed 

 in topology as a result of an unresolved polychotomy involving species at a basal 



