Two New Records of Upeneus Spottocaudalis and U. Sundaicus (Perciformes: Mullidae) from the Northern South China Sea Based on the Morphology and DNA Barcoding

Abstract

Abstract In this study, two new records of goatfishes Upeneus spottocaudalis and U. sundaicus from the South China Sea, combing evidence from morphology and DNA barcodes for species identification. ML tree and NJ tree result showed that the sequences of U. spottocaudalis and U. sundaicus were clustered with the homologous sequences form GenBank, respectively, and the intraspecific genetic distances of U. spottocaudalis (0.2%) and U. sundaicus (0.3%) were less than 2%. Automatic Barcode Gap Discovery (ABGD) analysis also supported this result of classification.