First Geographical Record and Re-description of White Mouth Jack Uraspis Uraspis (Günther, 1860) From Andaman and Nicobar Islands With a Detailed Phylogenetic Analysis Based Validation for the Morphological Identification

A single specimen of Uraspis uraspis was collected in the gillnet landings from the coast of Andaman and Nicobar Islands. The present study reports the first geographical record and redescription of Uraspis uraspis from this region. The specimen was identified morphologically and reconfirmed through molecular barcoding. DNA was extracted from the specimen, and the partial region of the cox1 gene was amplified and sequenced. The obtained partial sequence was edited to remove ambiguous nucleotides resulting in a 625 bp long sequence. The sequence was then submitted to the NCBI’s GenBank database (GenBank accession number MZ766929.1). The main distinguishing characteristics of U. uraspis were white tongue, white palate membrane, and naked breast area. Phylogenetic reconstruction of 604 base paired aligned sequence was compared with barcodes of 93 sequences of similar and different species. Upon construction of the maximum likelihood, Neighbor-joining and MrBayes tree, Andaman isolate of Uraspis uraspis species was found to be forming a distinct clade with other species of Uraspis with high statistical support. Analysis of intraspecific and interspecific genetic distance also showed the similarity between Andaman isolate and U. uraspis from other regions (intraspecific genetic distance < 0.01) and the difference between different species of the same genus (interspecific genetic distance > 0.02). Genetic distance values between and within species also supported the distinct clade formation of Uraspis sp. in the phylogenetic trees.