Allometry of Teleopsis thaii

Male T. thaii were significantly larger than females for both eyespan and body length (Fig. 18; Table 2; χ2 = 25.02, d.f. = 1, P <0.001 and χ2 = 7.52, d.f. = 1, P = 0.006, respectively). There was significant difference in the slope of eyespan allometry between male and female T. thaii, with males having a steeper scaling relationship (Fig. 18; SEX × BODY LENGTH interaction term in Table 3).

Male T. thaii have the largest mean eyespan of all the species available for phylogenetic and morphological comparisons (Table 2). In addition, the slope of male eyespan allometry and the degree of sexual dimorphism observed in T. thaii is greater than that of all other recorded species except T. breviscopium (Table 2).

TABLE 2. Mean trait size (mm) for eyespan (ES), body length (BL) and allometric slope (± S.E.) of male and female T. thaii (N = sample size). Allometric slope is the least-squares regression coefficient of eyespan on body length. Sexual dimorphism is computed as the difference between male and female slopes. For comparison, the same metrics are given for other members of the Teleopsis genus (data from Baker & Wilkinson 2001).

TABLE 3. General Linear Model of body length and sex effects on eyespan in T. thaii .