Talk:Mecoptera

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[edit] Siphonaptera are really Mecoptera?

There isn't a reference to back this up, but even if there was, I don't think DNA entirely overrules the other taxonomy characteristics that are taken into account. In any case I don't think the claim that Siphonaptera are a part of the Mecoptera is widely accepted. The Tree of life and the Systema Naturae certainly don't think so. I'll probably remove that from the taxo box unless there's good evidence that the claim is widely accepted. - Taxman ^Talk 15:52, August 4, 2005 (UTC)

You're probably right that it's not widely accepted yet, so feel free to remove it from the taxobox, although it should probably be mentioned in the article. I'll add the reference in a minute. AFAIK the DNA evidence does not really contradict other evidence -- it's just that before, nobody really knew where to put fleas since they are so highly specialized, and so as a stopgap they made them their own order. With TOL/SN, it's unfortunately hard to tell if they disagree with a research result or if they just haven't heard about it yet. --Chl 20:56, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

More than happy to leave it in the article the way it is now as a mention, especially if you can find the reference for it. But I'd really like to remove it from the taxobox unless there's further verification that the claim is widely accepted. Covering it that way seems appropriate given the facts of the situation as I see them so far. Thanks for responding also - Taxman ^Talk 21:04, August 4, 2005 (UTC)

Needs citation and more detailed discussion (i.e. which sequence? nDNA, mtDNA, ...? Have HGT or parasite-forced evolution effects been discussed (Have Wolbachia studies been done in these taxa?)? Morphological apomorphies seem to me at first sight and being fairly ignorant about syn- vs aut- in insects to be equivocal as for being syn- vs autapomorphies: the exact nature of the reversal would be interesting to know; Resilin vs no resilin is apparently a highly autapomorphic character in arthropods so its presence is not very informative. (Reversals tend to screw up parsimony analyses because they're unparsimonious per definition; might be worthy of note if we can get a current morphology paper/discussion too)

Also, there is one word missing from the Boreidae part; please see the source as I have outcommented it, being unable to resolve it myself and the information making not much sense at present - probably just "and", but might as well be "versus" (i.e. phylogeny -> B. (M. + S.) ). In any case, scrapping Siphonaptera would only be a relevant question to ponder if Mecoptera would be polyphyletic otherwise, and even then it might be better to split up the latter as Siphonaptera's evolutionary "trajectory" has gone along a very different course for considerable time. It might even be possible to live with a paraphyletic Mecoptera (to the exclusion of Siphonaptera); it is basically what weighs more, phylogeny (where they came from) or evolution as a whole (where they're at). Dysmorodrepanis 02:02, 14 January 2007 (UTC)