Austrostylopyginae, Djernæs & Murienne, 2022

Djernaes, Marie & Murienne, Jerome, 2022, Phylogeny of Blattoidea (Dictyoptera: Blattodea) with a revised classification of Blattidae, Arthropod Systematics & amp; Phylogeny 80, pp. 209-228 : 209

4.6.4. Austrostylopyginae subfam. nov.

Type-genus.

Austrostylopyga Mackerras, 1968.

Diagnosis.

See Mackerras’ (1968a) diagnosis for genus Austrostylopyga .

In all our analyses, we found a highly supported clade (pp = 100, bs = 97-100) consisting of four species currently placed in Celatoblatta ( Blattinae s.l.) and Eppertia ( Polyzosteriinae ). The four species were Celatoblatta shelfordi (Shaw), Celatoblatta sp. W23, Celatoblatta sp. W24 and Eppertia aptera (Princis). Our analyses generally placed this group as sister to all other Blattidae except Duchailluiinae , but some analyses of the complete data set placed the group as sister to Polyzosteriinae (Table S2).

The four species in the group belong to the genus Austrostylopyga as defined by Mackerras (1968a); all four species were identified by JM using Mackerras (1968a). Mackerras erected Austrostylopyga ( Blattinae ) with Celatoblatta shelfordi as the type species to accommodate six Australian and New Guinean species that she considered intermediate between Blattinae and Polyzosteriinae . Mackerras stated that the general appearance is very similar to Platyzosteria ( Polyzosteriinae ), but that the legs (specifically the metatarsal spines, symmetry of the pretarsal claws and shape of the femoral comb) are more similar to Blattinae . Mackerras found that the proventriculus is blattine-like while the shape of the spermatheca and L2 in the male genitalia and the laterosternal shelf in the female genitalia is polyzosteriine-like. Princis (1971) synonymised Austrostylopyga with Celatoblatta , but transferred E. aptera to Eppertia ( Polyzosteriinae ) instead of including it in Celatoblatta as he did with the other members of Austrostylopyga .

Based on our results, we restore Austrostylopyga as defined by Mackerras (1968a). However, our results do not support placing this genus in Blattinae . Furthermore, Austrostylopyga cannot be firmly placed within any of the existing subfamilies, neither based on our molecular results nor based on Mackerras’ (1968a) morphological observations. Hence, we place Austrostylopyga in a separate subfamily, Austrostylopyginae , which occurs in Australia and New Guinea.