Integrative taxonomy of the stick insect genus Austrocarausius Brock, 2000 (Phasmatodea: Lonchodidae) reveals cryptic species in remnant Queensland rainforests
Braxton R. Jones
A * , Paul D. Brock B , Barbara Mantovani C , Perry Beasley-Hall A D E , David K. Yeates F and Nathan Lo A
+ Author Affiliations
- Author Affiliations
A School of Life and Environmental Sciences, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia.
B The Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road, London, SW7 5BD, UK.
C Department of Biological, Geological and Environmental Sciences, University of Bologna, I-40126 Bologna, Italy.
D School of Biological Sciences, The University of Adelaide, Adelaide, SA 5000, Australia.
E South Australian Museum, Adelaide, SA 5000, Australia.
F Australian National Insect Collection, CSIRO PO Box 1700, Canberra, ACT 2601, Australia.
Invertebrate Systematics 36(9) 849-873 https://doi.org/10.1071/IS21076
Submitted: 12 November 2021 Accepted: 28 July 2022 Published: 21 September 2022
© 2022 The Author(s) (or their employer(s)). Published by CSIRO Publishing. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND)
Abstract
Austrocarausius Brock, 2000 is a stick insect (Phasmatodea: Lonchodidae) genus containing two species restricted to the tropical rainforests of northern Queensland. Recent specimen collections between the two species’ type localities, Lizard Island and Rockhampton, have suggested that Austrocarausius might represent more than the two nominal species. Here, we apply morphological and molecular analyses to revise the taxonomy of this genus. Using both field-collected and historic museum samples, we developed morphological species hypotheses and descriptions. Genetic sequencing of mitochondrial COI and 16S were undertaken for species delimitation and phylogenetic analysis, including an estimate of the evolutionary timescale of the genus. Based on these results, we propose nine new Austrocarausius species, increasing the number of species in the genus to eleven: A. nigropunctatus (Kirby, 1896), A. mercurius (Stål, 1877), A. coronatus sp. nov., A. decorus sp. nov., A. eirmosus sp. nov., A. gasterbulla sp. nov., A. tuberosus sp. nov., A. macropunctatus sp. nov., A. truncatus sp. nov. A. waiben sp. nov. and A. walkeri sp. nov. Our results suggest Austrocarausius species diversified over the last c. 25–70 Ma, resulting in the now endemic distributions in the tropical rainforests of the central and northern Queensland coasts. This is the first integrative systematic study of an Australian phasmid genus, combining morphological, molecular and biogeographical methods. Additional species of Austrocarausius likely remain undescribed as can be inferred from methodical sampling of rainforest patches along the Queensland coast.
Keywords: biogeography, dispersal, integrative taxonomy, molecular dating, morphological analysis, phylogenetic, systematics, taxonomy.
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