基于几何形态测量学的刘氏蝎蛉翅形分析

olour polymorphism is a common phenomenon in many groups of insects. This phenomenon allows adaptation to different environments, and is also one of the main reasons for synonymy in insect taxonomy practices. The scorpionfly Panorpa liui Hua is a widespread species in the northeastern region of China, with a typical yellowish-brown body and ground colour of wings. However, a black-bodied Panorpa (melanic morph) and a black-tailed Panorpa (intermediate morph) are frequently encountered sympatrically with the typical brown morph of P. liui, to which they are very similar in appearance. Geometric morphometric analyses were conducted on the variation of the right forewing shape with P. changbaishana and P. jilinensis as reference species. The results show that the wing shapes of the intermediate and melanic morphs are very similar to and difficult to separate from that of the typical morph of P. liui based on the canonical variance analysis, between-group PCA (principal component analysis) and the PCA. The partial Procrustes distance between the melanic morph and the typical P. liui is the smallest, indicating that they are the most similar on wing shape. The melanic morph and the intermediate morph are nearly the same on wing size, and larger than the typical morph of P. liui. Differences in wing morphology are described for these three morphs and indicate that geometric morphometric analyses of wing characters accurately classify individuals of the unknown specimens and can reliably discriminate between colour polymorphism groups in specific level. The reason of colour polymorphism and its possibility of causing synonyms in taxonomy are briefly discussed.