ABSTRACT

Glossina is the only genus in the family Glossinidae (Brues et al. 1954; Pollock 1971). Glossinidae are placed in the superfamily Hippoboscoidea, earlier proposed as Glossiniodea (Hennig 1971), and pertain to the dipteran group Calyptratae (Nirmala et  al. 2001). Molecular analyses (Gooding et al. 1991) provided support for the monophyly of the three groups, that is, morsitans, palpalis, and fusca. The phylogeny of the Hippoboscoidea, including seven Glossina species, was estimated using two mitochondrial (cytochrome oxidase I [COI] and 16S rRNA) and two nuclear (Carbamoyl-phosphate synthetase 2, Aspartate transcarbamylase, Dihydroorotase [CAD] and 28S rDNA) markers (Petersen et al. 2007), conrming the monophyly of the Glossinidae. Gas chromatographic analysis of cuticular alkenes-derived phenetic relationships between 26 species and subspecies (Carlson et al. 1993), again supporting the three groups. However, species considered to belong to the fusca group (i.e., Glossina longipennis, G. medicorum, and G.  nigrofusca nigrofusca) appeared to be mixed within the palpalis clade, possibly because of convergent environmental adaptation as occurring in other disease vectors (Maingon et al. 2003). The taxonomic position of other species is also uncertain (Gooding and Krafsur 2005). On the basis of classical taxonomy using characters of the male genitalia, G. austeni was placed in the morsitans group. However, female genital characters are shared with the fusca group and their ecology is very similar to that of the palpalis group (Gooding and Krafsur 2005). Enzyme analysis placed G. austeni as a sister group of morsitans, and DNA sequence data indicate that G. austeni is more closely related to the subspecies of the G. morsitans than to the species of the palpalis subgroup (Gooding et al. 1991). In addition to the uncertainties surrounding the validity of the subgeneric groupings, there are a number of taxa of uncertain taxonomic status at the species/subspecies level. Within the palpalis group, there are ve taxa originally accorded subspecic status by Machado (1954). Even within these subspecies there is evidence for possible cryptic species (Gooding et al. 2004). Similarly within the morsitans subgroup there are three subspecic forms within the

nominal taxon (Machado 1970), although Krafsur and Endsley (2006) used microsatellite data to argue the elevation of the three subspecies of G. morsitans (G. morsitans morsitans, G. morsitans submorsitans, and G. morsitans centralis) to specic status.