The fish order Pleuronectiformes, composed of 14 families, has two suborders: Psettodoidei (with one family) and Pleuronectoidei (with thirteen families). The relationships among families of Pleuronectoidei and among the genera of their families have extensively been debated and a consensus has not yet been reached. In the present study, partial sequences of the 12S and 16S mitochondrial rRNA genes were obtained from 19 species belonging to the families Achiridae, Bothidae, Cynoglossidae, Paralichthyidae, Pleuronectidae, Scophthalmidae, and Soleidae. Additional sequences of 42 pleuronectiform species were obtained from GenBank. Phylogenetic analyses were conducted by the methods of maximum-parsimony, maximum-likelihood and Bayesian inference. Our results... |