Phylogeny of H eteronychia : the largest lineage of S arcophaga ( D iptera: S arcophagidae)

S arcophaga   M eigen is one of the megadiverse genera of true flies, with approximately 850 valid species worldwide. The genus is divided into about 160 subgenera, the validity of a vast majority of which has never been verified using cladistic methods. This paper deals with the mainly P alaearctic subgenus H eteronychia   B rauer & B ergenstamm, which comprises 89 species and is thus the largest subunit of S arcophaga . We performed a cladistic analysis of the group based exclusively on male morphological characters. Parsimony analyses were run on a matrix of 84 characters for 88 species. Species of the subgenera D iscachaeta   E nderlein and N otoecus   S tein were also included in the matrix. A further analysis was carried out using a subset of characters from the terminalia alone (70 characters). The results show that the clade formed by H eteronychia , D iscachaeta , and N otoecus is monophyletic, with D iscachaeta emerging as polyphyletic whereas S arcophaga ( N otoecus ) longestylata   S trobl is nested within the Sarcophaga filia ‐group. Character states supporting H eteronychia and the few well‐supported species‐groups are discussed in detail. The following synonymies are proposed: D iscachaeta  =  H eteronychia ( syn. nov. ) and N otoecus  =  H eteronychia ( syn. nov. ). The paper also includes a historical background of the taxon in relation to the classification of the genus S arcophaga over the past two centuries, as well as a terminological review of the male terminalia, particularly of the distiphallus. © 2013 The Linnean Society of London