Maximum likelihood and maximum parsimony ancestral states of characters based on male genitalia. Key genitalic characters of the species of the Belostoma plebejum group, particularly those whose aspect of structures was studied rather than their presence or absence and their aspect simultaneously (i.e., only comparable characters), were optimised over the ultrametric maximum credibility tree yielded by Bayesian inference performed on the matrix with all datasets combined. Likelihood of ancestral states are shown as pie charts only in the nodes where evolutionary changes are likely to have happened, and changes in terminal branches were omitted. Characters optimised under maximum parsimony indicated by an asterisk (on the left side) are non-ambiguous. The scoring of the states of each character is indicated by coloured rectangles.