Two new species of Cephalastor Giordani Soika (Hymenoptera: Vespidae: Eumeninae), with a review of the phylogeny of the genus

Abstract

Cephalastor Giordani Soika is a small Neotropical genus of eumenine wasps comprising 12 species, most of them described at the beginning of this century. The genus was revised by Garcete-Barrett, and a cladistic analysis carried out. Cephalastor humeralis n. sp. and C. minarum n. sp. are described herein, and the phylogenetic relationships among the species of the genus inferred from morphological data. A total of 34 characters were constructed (an increase of more than 209% from Garcete-Barrett's 2003 study) and new taxa added as outgroups. The monophyly of the genus was corroborated, and the relationships were stable under both equal and implied weighting schemes. New collecting records are added for Cephalastor bossanova Garcete-Barrett and Cephalastor estela Garcete-Barrett.