Sperm structure and phylogeny of the Chrysomelidae

Abstract

In recent years it has become clear that there is a close relationship between comparative spermatology and animal taxonomy and phylogeny (Baccetti 1979,1985), particularly in certain groups of insects (Baccetti 1987a, Burrini et al. 1987). The few published descriptions show that there is a peculiar affinity between the Coleoptera Tenebrio (Baccetti et al. 1973), Callosobruchus (Bawa and Kanwar 1975), Leptinotarsa (Shay et al. 1969a, 1969b), Lilioceris (Furieri 1977) and Divales (Mazzini 1976), which belong to the families Tenebrionidae, Bruchidae, Chrysomelidae and Cleridae respectively, and the many species of the superfamily Curculionoidea (Burrini et al. 1987). The most peculiar feature of this group of taxa is the presence of a pair of crystalline, dense accessory bodies flanking the classical ‘9 + 9 + 2’ axoneme, close to the two almost completely crystallized mitochondrial derivatives. It is not surprising to find this common feature, because all these families belong to the section Cucujiformia and appear strikingly different from all other Coleoptera in several respects (Crowson 1981), including the spermatological point-of-view. One puzzling problem is the close affinity between the Bruchidae, Chrysomelidae and most of the Curculionoidea, so that these taxa seem to form a natural group, while the Tenebrionidae and Cleridae are rather different.