Identifying of Homoneura (Diptera: Lauxaniidae) females by means of geometric morphometrics

The females of the European species Homoneura consobrina, H. patelliformis and H. thalhammeri are not easy to discern. A possible method of identifying females is to apply geometric morphometrics to the wing shape, when we expect females of certain species to have wing shape more similar to conspecific males, than to other species. For this purpose, 94 specimens of the three species were collected mainly by means of Malaise trap in western and central Slovakia and Montenegro. The combination of morphological and distribution data allowed for the females to be divided into three groups. In next step, wings of both males and females were digitized, aligned by Generalized Procrustes Analysis and analyzed via multivariate methods (principal component analysis, multivariate analysis of variance, linear discriminant analysis). Results of the analysis clearly suggest that females with large and convex 8th sternite belong to H. patelliformis, while females with reduced 8th sternite belong to either H. thalhammeri or H. consobrina.