| Research Abstract |
A key to the Scarabaeoidea families, Lucanidae, Passalidae, Ceratocanthidae, Bolboceratidae, Hybosolidae, Ochodaeidae, Aphodiidae, Scarabaeidae, was provided, and the diagnostic morphological characters were reviewed and illustrated for these families.
Phylogenetic analysis was made for 20 species of the 5 genera of the subfamily Aulacocyclinae and 5 species of the subfamily Passalinae as an outgroup based on 32 morphological characters by using the PAUP.As a result, the monophyly of Aulacocyclinae was supported with a high bootstrap probability. The monophylies of Ceracupes and Cylindrocaulus were also confirmed with high probabilities. The phylogenetic relationship among the 5 genera of Aulacocyclinae was estimated as follows : ((Aulacocyclus + Taeniocerus) Cornacupes) Ceracupes) Cylindrocaulus). However, phylogenetic analysis based on the sequence data of mitochondrial COI gene suggested the different relationship as ((Taeniocerus + Ceracupes) Cylindrocaulus)(Aulacocyclus + Comacupes)). Further analysis based on a much longer sequence is desired in order to have more reliable results.
In addition, the sequence of mitochondrial 16S rRNA (about 480 bp) were determined for the representative families of Scarabaeoidea, Passalidae, Lucanidae and Scarabaidae. The sequence divergences (%) were 26.9-40.2, 22.2-31.2 and 28.5 between Lucanidae and Passalidae, Lucanidae and Scarabaeidae, and Passalidae and Scarabaeidae, respectively.
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