Of trash bins and catch-alls: a molecular phylogeny of the Odonotophotopsis melicausa species-group

The Odontophotopsis melicausa (Hymenoptera: Mutillidae) species-group is a broadly distributed, morphologically depauperate group of nocturnal velvet ants. This group is unified by a dentate ventral margin of the mandible and a pair of uninteresting spines on the mesosternum. Using the internal transcribed spacer regions 1 and 2 we tested the validity of the O. melicausa species-group. Our data show that the O. melicausa species-group is paraphyletic, with O. melicausa separate from the rest of the species-group and more closely related to O. cockerelli. These data suggest that the combination of a dentate ventral margin of the mandible and simple spines located anteriorly on the mesosoma are not indicative of shared ancestry, rather they may be a product of convergence. We also discovered that O. melicausa piceipes, O. melicausa westcotti, O. mellicornis and O. obliqua are synonymous of O. melicausa. Finally, our data suggest that there are three undescribed species of Odontophotopsis morphologically similar to O. clypeata.