The family Ctenophthalmidae (Order Siphonaptera) has been considered as a ‘catchall’ for a wide range of divergent taxa showing a paraphyletic origin. In turn, Ctenophthalmus sp. (Ctenophthalmidae) includes 300 valid described taxa. Within this genus, males are easily distinguishable basing on the size, shape, and chaetotaxy of their genitalia; however, females show slight morphological differences with each other. The main objective of this work was to carry out a comparative morphometric, phylogenetic, and molecular study of two different subspecies: Ctenophthalmus baeticus boisseauorum and Ctenophthalmus apertus allani in order to clarify and discuss its taxonomic status. From a morphological and biometrical point of view, we found clear differences between modified abdominal segments of males of both subspecies and slight differences in the margin of sternum VII of all female specimens which did not correspond with molecular and phylogenetic results based on four different molecular markers (Internal Transcribed Spacer 1 and 2 of ribosomal DNA, and the partial cytochrome c oxidase subunit 1 and cytochrome b of mitochondrial DNA). Thus, we observed a phenotypic plasticity between both subspecies, which did not correspond with a real genotypic variability nor different environmental or ecological conditions. Basing on these results, we could consider that there are no solid arguments to consider these two ‘morphosubspecies’ as two different taxa. We propose that C. b. boisseauorum should be considered as a junior synonym of C. a. allani.

中文翻译：

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Ctenophthalmus baeticus boisseauorum (Beaucournu, 1968) 和 Ctenophthalmus apertus allani (Smit, 1955) (Siphonaptera: Ctenophthalmidae) 作为同义分类群：形态学、系统发育和分子表征

栉眼科 (Order Siphonaptera) 被认为是显示出并系起源的各种不同分类群的“笼统”。反过来，棘眼sp。（Ctenophalmidae）包括 300 个有效的描述分类群。在这个属中，雄性很容易根据其生殖器的大小、形状和毛囊进行区分。然而，雌性之间表现出轻微的形态差异。这项工作的主要目的是对两个不同的亚种进行比较形态学、系统发育和分子研究：柞蚕和鲽鱼以澄清和讨论其分类地位。从形态学和生物统计学的角度来看，我们发现两个亚种雄性的改良腹节之间存在明显差异，所有雌性标本的胸骨 VII 边缘略有差异，这与基于四种不同分子标记的分子和系统发育结果不相符（核糖体 DNA 的内部转录间隔区 1 和 2，以及部分细胞色素c氧化酶亚基 1 和细胞色素b线粒体DNA)。因此，我们观察到两个亚种之间的表型可塑性，这与真正的基因型变异性或不同的环境或生态条件不相符。基于这些结果，我们可以认为没有可靠的论据将这两个“形态亚种”视为两个不同的分类群。我们建议C. b. 肉豆蔻应该被视为初级的同义词一个。阿拉尼.