New status of <i>Bichromomyia</i> subspecies (Diptera: Psychodidae: Phlebotominae) based on molecular taxonomy

The sand fly of the genus Bichromomyia (Galati, 1995) includes 3 subspecies considered vectors of Leishmania, which share high morphological similarity. Through information from the Cytochrome Oxidase Subunit I (COI) gene, we provide complementary evidence to support that Bichromomyia olmeca olmeca, and Bichromomyia olmeca bicolor, should be raised to nominal species status. We recovered specimens of Bi. o. olmeca from Quintana Roo, Tabasco, and Oaxaca, Mexico, supply 17 new COI sequences, and also incorporate GenBank sequences for other Bichromomyia species. After a Maximum Likelihood (ML) analysis, all Bichromomyia species clustered with a bootstrap of 100%, although sequences of Bichromomyia flaviscutellata were divided into 2 clusters with an interspecific range distance of 11.16% between them, which confirm cryptic species in Brazil. The genetic distance of Bi. o. olmeca compared to related subspecies ranged between 12.59% and 14.64%. A total of 29 haplotypes (Hd = 0.987; π = 0.08783; S = 136) were recovered from the Bichromomyia sequences. Results of the TC network were consistent with the ML analysis, supporting that subspecies of Bichromomyia are genetically distinct and deserve being raised to valid species category: Bichromomyia olmeca (Vargas & Díaz-Nájera) and Bichromomyia bicolor (Fairchild & Theodor).