Journal of Genetics (2020)99:38 Ó Indian Academy of Sciences https://doi.org/10.1007/s12041-020-01200-2 (0123456789().,-volV)(0123456789().,-volV) RESEARCH ARTICLE Taxonomy and phylogenetic relationship of zokors YAO ZOU1, MIAO XU1, SHIEN REN1, NANNAN LIANG1, CHONGXUAN HAN1*, XIAONING NAN1* and JIANNING SHI2 1Key Laboratory of National Forestry and Grassland Administration on Management of Western Forest Bio-Disaster, Northwest Agriculture and Forestry University, Yangling 712100, People’s Republic of China 2Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region Forest Disease and Pest Control Quarantine Station, Yinchuan 750001, People’s Republic of China *For correspondence. E-mail: Chongxuan Han,
[email protected]; Xiaoning Nan,
[email protected]. Received 24 October 2019; revised 19 February 2020; accepted 2 March 2020 Abstract. Zokor (Myospalacinae) is one of the subterranean rodents, endemic to east Asia. Due to the convergent and parallel evolution induced by its special lifestyles, the controversies in morphological classification of zokor appeared at the level of family and genus. To resolve these controversies about taxonomy and phylogeny, the phylogenetic relationships of 20 species of Muroidea and six species of zokors were studied based on complete mitochondrial genome and mitochondrial Cytb gene, respectively. Phylogeny analysis of 20 species of Muroidea indicated that the zokor belonged to the family Spalacidae, and it was closer to mole rat rather than bamboo rat. Besides, by investigating the phylogenetic relationships of six species of zokors, the status of two genera of Eospalax and Myospalax was affirmed because the two clades differentiated in phylogenetic tree represented two types of zokors, convex occiput type and flat occiput type, respectively.