The agriculturally important flesh fly genus, Ravinia, enables us to study the intersection of evolutionary lineages and morphology. In particular, we determine if there is a disagreement between inferred genetic lineages and the morphology used to identify species, finding several discrepancies in Ravinia species. The findings from this study highlight the potential problems and the benefits that integrating molecular data can have in taxonomic studies.

The occurrence of Obama marmorata, from the Neotropical Region, is described as an introduced species in the Iberian Peninsula. DNA barcoding has also been successfully used as a tool for identifying this species as an alien species. Further studies are needed to elucidate its role as an introduced or an invasive species, its environmental requirements and its dispersal potential.

Our work summarises surprising discoveries about water scavenger beetles in mixed ant nests in Peninsular Malaysia. New species of Sphaerocetum, a genus belonging to a small isolated group called Protosternini, were collected, indicating that both adults and larvae are obligatory myrmecophiles, and allowing us to reveal the phylogenetic position of the group using morphology and molecular data. Our findings conform with the hypothesis that a wide spectrum of inhabited habitats, including several independent colonisations of ant nests, may be a reason for high species diversity of terrestrial hydrophilid beetles.

The rainforests of Australia’s Wet Tropics are recognised as a biodiversity hotspot and designated a World Heritage Area; however, many groups endemic to these forests remain poorly known. Here, we use both morphological and molecular data to identify and describe six new species of arachnids from the Wet Tropics, and explore their biogeographic relationships. This work adds to our growing understanding of the diversity, biogeography, and evolutionary history of the endemic biota of the area.

The shore-fly genus Rhysophora comprises species from the New World associated with aquatic plants (water lettuce and pickerel weed). We review the five species previously recognised, describe four new species, and reanalyse relationships among all included species. The results show that Rhysophora is a distinct lineage, and the evolutionary tree provides insights about the distribution and position of the genus among shore flies.