Phylogeny of Eels Suggested by Mitochondrial DNA Sequences.

The Phylogenetic relationship among 8 species of the eel Anguilla, collected from various parts of the world, was inferred by mitochondrial DNA base pair sequences of cytochrome b gene (410 bp). Phylogenetic analyses were performed with maximum parsimony and the neighbor-joining method assuming Anguilla celebesensis as the out-group. The observed sequence divergence between A. anguilla and A. rostrata showed a lower level of divergence (0.024) than the others (0.051-0.085). These Atlantic species were placed as a clade with A. australis australis and A. mossambica, whereas A. marmorata formed a clade with A. reinhardti. The mitochondrial phylogeny agreed with the phylogenetic relationships suggested by morphological studies, except the position of A. japonica.