Barcoding supports morphological identification

At the beginning, specialists were not sure whether two morphologically distinct groups actually belonged to different species or whether the smaller individuals were juveniles of the larger one. To clarify this question, individuals of both orders were collected and subjected to a detailed morphological analysis. In addition, a leg or part of a leg from each animal was sent to AIM for the DNA Barcoding Service. The molecular results of the DNA barcoding confirmed the conclusions of the morphological analysis. This meant that the morphologically distinct groups actually belonged to different species. Furthermore, additional morphological characteristics could be identified by the genetic analysis