Phylogeny of the Scarabaeini (Coleptera: Scarabaeidae)

Abstract

The Scarabaeini comprises some 146 species of ball-rolling dung beetles belonging to the genera Pachylomerus and Scarabaeus, and Scarabaeus subgenera, Kheper, Pachysoma, Scarabaeolus, Scarabaeus and· Sceliages. Their distribution extends throughout the Afrotropical region (including Madagascar) and southern latitudes of the Palaearctic. In this study, 244 morphological characters, including 154 multistate, and 3 biological characters were identified using 28 morphologically diverse members of the tribe. These taxa were polarized against 4 members from related tribes. Molecular sequence data from mitochondrial Cytochrome Oxidase subunit I (1197 bp) and 16S ribosomal RNA (461bp) genes of 25 of these taxa were also obtained in an attempt to further resolve broad phylogenetic relationships inferred from morphology-based hypotheses of tribal evolution.