Giant ants and their shape: revealing relationships in the genus Titanomyrma with geometric morphometrics.

ABSTRACT: Shape is a natural phenomenon inherent to many different lifeforms. A modern technique to analyse shape is geometric morphometrics (GM), which offers a whole range of methods concerning the pure shape of an object. The results from these methods have provided new insights into biological problems and have become especially useful in the fields of entomology and palaeontology. Despite the conspicuous successes in other hymenopteran groups, GM analysis of wings and fossil wings of Formicidae has been neglected. Here we tested if landmarks defining the wing shape of fossil ants that belong to the genus Titanomyrma are reliable and if this technique is able to expose relationships among different groups of the largest Hymenoptera that ever lived. This study comprises 402 wings from 362

SUBMITTER: Katzke J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5774302 | biostudies-literature | 2018

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature