EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF ENTOMOLOGYENTOMOLOGY ISSN (online): 1802-8829 Eur. J. Entomol. 113: 558–570, 2016 http://www.eje.cz doi: 10.14411/eje.2016.076 ORIGINAL ARTICLE Characterization of the complete mitochondrial genome of Spilarctia robusta (Lepidoptera: Noctuoidea: Erebidae) and its phylogenetic implications YU SUN, SEN TIAN, CEN QIAN, YU-XUAN SUN, MUHAMMAD N. ABBAS, SAIMA KAUSAR, LEI WANG, GUOQING WEI, BAO-JIAN ZHU * and CHAO-LIANG LIU * College of Life Sciences, Anhui Agricultural University, 130 Changjiang West Road, Hefei, 230036, China; e-mails:
[email protected] (Y. Sun),
[email protected] (S. Tian),
[email protected] (C. Qian),
[email protected] (Y.-X. Sun),
[email protected] (M.-N. Abbas),
[email protected] (S. Kausar),
[email protected] (L. Wang),
[email protected] (G.-Q. Wei),
[email protected] (B.-J. Zhu),
[email protected] (C.-L. Liu) Key words. Lepidoptera, Noctuoidea, Erebidae, Spilarctia robusta, phylogenetic analyses, mitogenome, evolution, gene rearrangement Abstract. The complete mitochondrial genome (mitogenome) of Spilarctia robusta (Lepidoptera: Noctuoidea: Erebidae) was se- quenced and analyzed. The circular mitogenome is made up of 15,447 base pairs (bp). It contains a set of 37 genes, with the gene complement and order similar to that of other lepidopterans. The 12 protein coding genes (PCGs) have a typical mitochondrial start codon (ATN codons), whereas cytochrome c oxidase subunit 1 (cox1) gene utilizes unusually the CAG codon as documented for other lepidopteran mitogenomes. Four of the 13 PCGs have incomplete termination codons, the cox1, nad4 and nad6 with a single T, but cox2 has TA. It comprises six major intergenic spacers, with the exception of the A+T-rich region, spanning at least 10 bp in the mitogenome.