OUTLINE BASED GEOMETRIC MORPHOMETRIC ANALYSIS OF WING SHAPE AND SIZE IN SELECTED SPECIES OF BEES (Apis sp. and Bombus sp.) Ray Vincent E. Araña rayvincentarana@gmail.com INTRODUCTION The complex shape of an organism cannot easily be summarized by using linear measurements as in traditional morphometrics (Pavlinov 2001). Because these measurements are highly correlated with size, much effort was spent for size correction (Zelditch et al, 2004). But there is no consensus on different size correction methods and several difficulties remain. For instance, the homologies of linear distances are difficult to assess and the same set of distance measures can be obtained from totally different shapes (Zelditch et al, 2004). In general, it is not feasible to generate graphical representations of shapes from the linear distances (Adams et al, 2004). Morphological features are an important source of information for many areas of biological investigation, including systematics and taxonomy. Most studies in these areas are done using meristic and morphometric characteristics. Meristic characteristics are generally countable and informative for species, genera and higher taxonomic levels. However, in interspecific and populational studies, these measurements are not informative and it is therefore necessary to obtain information on morphometric characteristics (Bookstein et al, 1985). These characteristics are generally quantitative phenotypic values obtained from continuous measurements and ratios in which classes are often defined based on means and standard