Table 4.
Selection of groundplan characters and apomorphies of Holometabola and of those holometabolan subgroups whose phylogenetic relationships were addressed in this study and whose monophyly was confirmed
| Taxon | Characters |
|---|---|
| Holometabola |
•* Larval head orthognathous |
| •* Larval compound eyes simplified but present | |
| •* Ocelli absent in larvae | |
| •* Larval tentorium X-shaped | |
| •* Retractile larval abdominal prolegs absent | |
| • Larval cerci absent (possible reversal in Strepsiptera [homology uncertain]) | |
| •* Adult head orthognathous | |
| • Meso- and metasternum invaginated | |
| • Meso- and metacoxae closely adjacent medially | |
| • Appearance of fully developed compound eyes including external apparatus in the pupal stage (reversal in Strepsiptera) | |
| • External wing buds absent in larval stages (partial reversal in Strepsiptera) | |
| Aparaglossata (Holometabola excluding Hymenoptera) |
• Larval head prognathous |
| • Well-developed larval stemmata | |
| • Larval tentorium H-shaped | |
| • Paraglossae vestigial or absent, without muscles | |
| • Ventral sclerites of segment VIII (gonocoxae and gonapophyses) indistinct (reversals within Neuropterida) | |
| Neuropteroidea § (Neuropterida and Coleopterida) |
• Adult head prognathous or slightly inclined (reversal in Neuroptera) |
| Megaloptera § |
• Sensorium on antepenultimate larval antennomere |
| • Larval salivary duct strongly narrowed, without recognizable lumen | |
| • Setiferous lateral abdominal gills present in larvae | |
| Neuroptera + Megaloptera |
• Mesothoracic prealare present (also in Amphiesmenoptera) |
| • Muscular connection between metafurcal arm and epimeral apophysis | |
| • Aquatic larvae (with reversal) | |
| Coleopterida (Coleoptera and Strepsiptera) |
• Antenna with 9 flagellomeres or less |
| • Pronotum and propleuron partly or completely connected (also in Diptera) | |
| • Metathorax enlarged, hind wings used as flight organs (posteromotorism) | |
| • Membranous area between mesoscutellum and mesopostnotum present | |
| Mecopterida (Antliophora and Amphiesmenoptera) |
• Larval dorsal tentorial arm strongly reduced or absent |
| • Less than 3 larval antennomeres (reversal to 3 in some groups) | |
| • Larval galea and lacinia extensively or completely fused (also missing as separate structures in Neuroptera and Strepsiptera) | |
| • Larval Musculus craniodististipitalis present | |
| Siphonaptera + Mecoptera § | • Muscle connecting profurcal arms (Musculus profurca-spinalis) present |
| • Acanthae of proventriculus close-set, prominently elongated |
Plesiomorphic groundplan characters are marked with an asterisk *. For a full list and for apomorphies found for additional subgroups see Additional file 4, Chapter 5. Characters apply to adults if not mentioned otherwise. For groups marked with § behind taxon name, no selection but rather all obtained apomorphies are listed. Groundplan characters and apomorphies were inferred from the morphological datamatrix of Beutel et al. [15] and the interordinal topology of the ML tree of dataset 1 by formal character mapping in Mesquite [33].