Summary
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1.
ThePentatomini, which constitute a single Tribe within one of the Subfamilies of the hemipteran FamilyPentatomidae, include an unusually large number of species. Though these species vary considerably in their size and color, they are very uniform in their essential external and internal morphology.
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2.
Uniformity also characterizes such features in the Tribe as the chromosome number and meiotic behavior. But in the eleven species here investigated, this uniformity does not extend to the DNA content of the male meiotic cells, as determined by Feulgen cytophotometry.
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3.
The lowest DNA content is found inThyanta which, in this respect, is well separated from an intermediate group whose DNA values vary around a mean that is roughly double the lowest amount. Some evidence is available that a still higher multiple of DNA may be represented in theAcrosternum-Nezara complex of species.
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4.
In view of these cytochemical data, the multiplicity of species coupled with a striking uniformity of morphological and cytological features is provisionally explained on the basis of varying polyteny.
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To ProfessorJ. Seiler — fellow angler and fellow cytologist — on the occasion of his seventieth birthday.
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Hughes-Schrader, S., Schrader, F. Polyteny as a factor in the chromosomal evolution of the pentatomini (Hemiptera). Chromosoma 8, 135–151 (1956). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01259497
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01259497