Abstract
The family Toxoderidae (Mantodea) contains an ecologically diverse group of praying mantis species that have in common greatly elongated bodies. In this study, we sequenced and compared the complete mitochondrial genomes of two Toxoderidae species, Paratoxodera polyacantha and Toxodera hauseri, and compared their mitochondrial genome characteristics with another member of the Toxoderidae, Stenotoxodera porioni (KY689118). The lengths of the mitogenomes of T. hauseri and P. polyacantha were 15,616 bp and 15,999 bp, respectively, which is similar to that of S. porioni (15,846 bp). The size of each gene as well as the A+T-rich region and the A+T content of the whole genome were also very similar among the three species as were the protein-coding genes, the A+T content and the codon usages. The mitogenome of T. hauseri had the typical 22 tRNAs, whereas that of P. polyacantha had 26 tRNAs including an extra two copies of trnA-trnR. Intergenic regions of 67 bp and 76 bp were found in T. hauseri and P. polyacantha, respectively, between COX2 and trnK; these can be explained as residues of a tandem duplication/random loss of trnK and trnD. This non-coding region may be synapomorphic for Toxoderidae. In BI and ML analyses, the monophyly of Toxoderidae was supported and P. polyacantha was the sister clade to T. hauseri and S. porioni.
Highlights
Mantodea are a major group of predatory insects and over 2,500 extant species/subspecies are known that belong to 427 genera, assigned to 21 families (Ehrmann, 2002; Svenson & Whiting, 2009; Otte, Spearman & Stiewe, 2016)
The size variation of the three mitochondrial genomes was mainly caused by different intergenic nucleotides (IGNs) and the presence of additional copies of tRNAs in P. polyacantha and S. porioni
The nucleotide composition of the P. polyacantha and T. hauseri mitogenomes had a high A+T bias of 74.81% and 73.49% and both showed positive AT-skew and negative GC-skew, which was similar to S. porioni (Table 2)
Summary
Mantodea are a major group of predatory insects and over 2,500 extant species/subspecies are known that belong to 427 genera, assigned to 21 families (Ehrmann, 2002; Svenson & Whiting, 2009; Otte, Spearman & Stiewe, 2016). How to cite this article Zhang et al (2018), Gene characteristics of the complete mitochondrial genomes of Paratoxodera polyacantha and Toxodera hauseri (Mantodea: Toxoderidae). Praying mantises in this family are ecologically diverse and are distributed across the Indian subcontinent, Indonesia, southwest Asia, tropical Africa, Afghanistan, and Australia (Patel, Sing & Singh, 2016). The outstanding feature of Toxoderidae is a highly elongated body; in particular, the prothorax is very long, often nearly half of the entire body length and the metazona is laterally compressed and often carries a dorsal ridge (Wieland, 2013)
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