Miller et al. 2005

Miller KB, Alarie Y, Wolfe GW, Whiting MF. 2005. Association of insect life stages using DNA sequences: the larvae of Philodytes umbrinus (Motschulsky) (Coleoptera: Dytsicidae). Systematic Entomology 30: 499-509.

These authors used DNA sequence data in the form of 806 bp of mtCOI, to associate unidentified larvae to a described species. The insects were collected from pools in the desert region of the Skeleton Coast of northern Namibia. The larvae were morphologically associated with one tribe of dytiscids, and were collected with adults and larvae of two other species in the tribe in the genus Laccophilus, but were larger-bodied than known larvae of that genus.

Between species differences in sequence ranged between 1.9 and 19.9%, similar to values reported for other insect species. Within species differences were between 0 and 0.82%, and the differences in sequences between the larvae and the adults of their assigned species was 0 to 0.14%, providing clear evidence of the association.

The authors provide a very detailed list of morphological characters that are diagnostic for larvae of this genus (Philodytes), and a longer and even more detailed list of characters diagnostic for the species (P. umbrinus). They state near the end of the paper that their goal was not to provide molecular diagnostic features, but to use DNA sequence data to work backwards to find diagnostic morphological features which had not previously been described. There is some additional discussion of the uses, abuses, and limits of DNA barcoding in a taxonomic context, with a final point that taxonomy without morphology would not be as interesting.