A new perspective on the phylogeny of Polietina Schnabl & Dziedzicki (Diptera: Muscidae): integrating morphological and molecular evidence

Polietina is a genus of Muscidae found in the New World, particularly in the Neotropical region. The genus is currently classified within the subfamily Muscinae and consists of 15 species whose phylogenetic relationships have been previously studied using morphological data. In our study, we conducted a phylogenetic analysis based on 37 morphological characters sourced from the literature and eight molecular markers (12S, 16S, 18S, 28S, cytochrome C oxidase subunit I, cytochrome b , region 4 of carbamoyl-phosphate synthetase-aspartate transcarbamoylase dihydroorotase, and elongation factor 1-ɑ), totaling 5366 characters. We obtained molecular data for eight species of the genus and four outgroup taxa from original sequencing and public repositories. We used Bayesian posterior probabilities to estimate the topology, as follows: ( P. flavidicincta (( P. rubella ( P. concina ( P. wulpi , P. orbitalis ))) ( P. steini (( P. flavithorax ( P. ponti , Polietina sp.)) ( P. major ( P. prima ( P. bicolor ( P. minor ( P. univittata , Polietina sp.))))))))). The reciprocal monophyly of all species for which more than one identified sequence was available is supported by our results. Our analysis largely supports the previously published hypotheses regarding the phylogeny of Polietina . However, major differences were observed between the locations of P. flavidicincta and P. flavithorax . Additionally, we discuss the identity of unidentified Polietina specimens with sequences published in GenBank or new sequences produced as part of our study.