Helcostizus

4.3.1 | Helcostizus View in CoL View at ENA

The genus Helcostizus was recovered as sister to all other Cryptini , a result consistent with the maximum likelihood analyses of Santos (2017) (hereafter abbreviated as ‘S17’); parsimony analyses in S17 had recovered Helcostizus as part of the Gabunia group (see below). Until 2017, Helcostizus was part of the Phygadeuontini (now Phygadeuontinae), placed by Townes (1970) in the subtribe Mastrina . Previous analyses using a single molecular locus ( Laurenne et al., 2006; Quicke, 2012) had already recovered Helcostizus within Cryptini , but that placement was then considered ‘anomalous’ ( Laurenne et al., 2006). Future work with more refined taxon sampling is needed to test whether Helcostizus is indeed an isolated offshoot of early cryptin diversification or if it is part of a clade with other, as of yet unknown, representatives.