Vanniini

Namyatova, Anna A. & Tyts, Veronica D., 2025, Total-evidence phylogeny of the subfamily Cylapinae and the divergence dates for its subgroupings (Insecta: Heteroptera: Miridae), Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 203 (1), pp. 1-34 : 28-29

Monophyly of Vanniini and their position

Vanniini are rendered as paraphyletic in the analyses based only on the molecular data, and the species from this tribe form a monophyletic group in the total-evidence analysis. The results of the molecular-only analyses are unexpected, because the monophyly of Vanniini has never been questioned in morphological assessments ( Gorczyca 1997, Cassis et al. 2003). The genera of this tribe did not form a clade in the study byNamyatova and Cassis (2019a); however, only two genera of Vanniini and a single genus of Cylapini were included there. This group is absent in the morphology-based analysis. We had only morphological data for Palaucoris , and it forms sister-group relationships with the rest of Vanniini in the total-evidence analysis (node 2), which also confirms the results provided by Wolski (2021). This clade is supported by a single contradicted apomorphy, which is the pretarsus with flattened parempodia, as opposed to all other Cylapinae tribes, which have setiform parempodia (e.g. Cassis et al. 2003). The Vanniini species with the pretarsus available for examination also have a rounded middle row of tiles on the unguitractor, whereas in other Cylapinae it is acute. However, the middle row of tiles is absent in the examined Palaucoris species. Further studies should be performed to test whether the structure of the unguitractor is uniform within Vanniini .

Judging from previous studies, male genitalia are very different in Vanniini , e.g. the vesica is strap-like in Vannius ( Gorczyca 1997) , and it is more or less voluminous in other genera ( Gorczyca and Konstantinov 2001, Cassis et al. 2003). However, Palaucoris does not have vesica. This genus has other significant morphological differences, e.g. its scent gland metathoracic evaporative area is wide, the body is punctate, the suture between the meso- and metapleura does not extend behind metathoracic spiracle, and the tarsi are moderately widened (Namyatova et al. 2016). To answer the question on the monophyly of Vanniini , both molecular and morphological data should be studied for all the genera of this tribe.

In the paper by Oh et al. (2023), the Cylapus complex does not form well-supported sister-group relationships with other taxa, but Wolski (2021) suggested that there is a strong argument for synonymizing Vanniini with Cylapini . The results of our analyses support those of Wolski (2021); however, the Сylapini genera outside of the Cylapus complex are not close to this group. Before suggesting any taxonomic changes regarding Vanniini , we need to test the monophyly of this tribe, in addition to the position of the Cylapini genera outside of the Cylapus complex, using more molecular data. Moreover, we did not recover any apomorphies for the group comprising the Cylapus complex and Vanniini . In the study by Woski (2021), there are four strict apomorphies for this clade: their head in the anterior view is about twice higher than wide, the base of clypeus is distinctly below the ventral margin of eyes, the antennal fossa is strongly removed from the suture between the mandibular and maxillary plate in the dorsal direction, and the ventral margin of the eye is strongly removed from the ventral margin of the head. The shape of the head and the position of the clypeus base, antennal fossa, and eye vary strongly within this clade and other mirids. We did not include the characters on the head height-to-width ratio and the position of the ventral margin of the eye in relationship to the ventral margin of the head. Two other characters were coded differently, and their states do not appear as apomorphies for this group. However, we agree that the combination of characters in the head can be diagnostic for the Vanniini + Cylapus complex group.