ABSTRACT
Evidence that an enigmatic female phorid fly from Thailand belongs to genus Postoptica Disney is given. Our comparison of these specimens to the described species of the subfamily Termitoxeniinae indicates the possibility that the abdomen of this genus is a plesiomorphic precursor to the highly derived female abdomen in this subfamily. We discuss the value of previously published and some newly proposed characters for resolving the phylogenetic position of Postoptica and Termitoxeniinae in light of these new specimens.
Acknowledgments
Line drawings were expertly done by Brian Koehler. We are grateful to Mike Sharkey and all the participants in the TIGER project for making this study possible. TIGER was funded by NSF grant DEB-0542864 to M. Sharkey and B. Brown.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).