The dorsal chaetotaxy of Trogolaphysa (Collembola, Paronellidae), with descriptions of two new species from caves in Belize

Abstract. Species diagnosis in Trogolaphysa has been based, until now, almost exclusively on number of eyes and shape of claws and mucro. Chaetotaxy, a character system important to diagnose species in other genera of scaled Entomobryoidea, has been described only for a few Trogolaphysa species. Here the complete dorsal chaetotaxy of six species of Trogolaphysa is described using the AMS and Szeptycki’s systems for head and body, respectively. A morphology-based parsimony analysis was performed to evaluate whether chaetotaxic characters overcome the influence of putatively cave adaptive convergent characters to resolve species level relationships, and to evaluate the evolution of the dorsal macrochaetae of the head. Phylogenetic analysis using only putative cave-adaptive characters support clades of unrelated taxa, but the addition of chaetotaxy overcomes the influence of convergent characters. A phylogeny based on all characters supports a trend towards reduced head macrochaetae number. Head macrochaetae are lost beginning with A3 and followed, in order, by S5, S3 and M3. In addition, a checklist of New World Trogolaphysa is provided and two new species, Trogolaphysa giordanoae sp. n. and Trogolaphysa jacobyi sp. n., are described on the basis of material collected in six caves in southern Belize.