Received: 9 May 2019 | Revised: 7 July 2019 | Accepted: 27 July 2019 DOI: 10.1111/zsc.12382 ORIGINAL ARTICLE Total‐evidence phylogeny of the owlflies (Neuroptera, Ascalaphidae) supports a new higher‐level classification Joshua R. Jones Department of Biology, Utah Valley University, Orem, UT, USA Abstract The first large‐scale, total‐evidence phylogeny of the owlflies (Neuroptera, Correspondence Ascalaphidae) is presented. A combined morphological and molecular dataset was Joshua R. Jones, Department of Biology, Utah Valley University, 800 W University analysed under several analytical regimes for 76 exemplars of Myrmeleontiformia Parkway, Orem, UT 84058, USA. (Psychopsidae, Nymphidae, Nemopteridae, Myrmeleontidae, Ascalaphidae), includ- Email:
[email protected] ing 57 of Ascalaphidae. At the subordinal level, the families were recovered in all Funding information analyses in the form Psychopsidae + (Nymphidae + (Nemopteridae + (Myrmeleont National Science Foundation; Texas idae + Ascalaphidae). In the DNA‐only maximum‐likelihood analysis, Ascalaphidae A&M University; Texas EcoLab (Braun & were recovered as paraphyletic with respect to the Myrmeleontidae and the tribe Gresham PLLC) Ululodini. In both the parsimony and Bayesian total‐evidence analyses, however, the latter with strong support, traditional Ascalaphidae were recovered as monophyletic, and in the latter, Stilbopteryginae were placed as the immediate sister group. The long‐standing subfamilies Haplogleniinae and Ascalaphinae were not recovered as monophyletic in any analysis, nor were several of the included tribes of non‐ululo- dine Ascalaphinae. The Ululodini were monophyletic and well supported in all anal- yses, as were the New World Haplogleniinae and, separately, the African/Malagasy Haplogleniinae. The remaining Ascalaphidae, collectively, were also consistently cohesive, but included a genus that until now has been placed in the Haplogleniinae, Protidricerus.