Welcome to Endopterygota (Holometabola) Insects

The Holometabola (Endopterygota) are a hyper-diverse superorder of insects, accounting for over 680,000 known species divided between 11 orders, including Coleoptera, Hymenoptera, Diptera and Lepidoptera.

The Holometabola Insects Phylogenetic Database (HIP-DB) is a molecular phylogenetics resource for DNA-taxonomy of this group. Users can access a database of nucleotide sequences for all commonly used markers available at Genbank in a format that can be utilised immediately in molecular systematics and DNA taxonomy. Unaligned sequences or pre-built concatenated data matrices for all commonly sequenced phylogenetic markers, as well as the trees built from them, can be downloaded and users are also able to upload their own sequences and conduct sequence similarity searches against the database.

Finally the page will offer access to bespoke PERL scripts and tools specifically designed to aid construction and analysis of large phylogenetic datasets and will also act as a focal point for DNA-taxonomy research in the Insecta.