The enigmatic Betadevario ramachandrani (Teleostei: Cyprinidae: Danioninae): phylogenetic position resolved by mitogenome analysis, with remarks on the prevalence of chimeric mitogenomes in GenBank

Abstract We present the complete mitochondrial genome and a phylogenetic analysis of the danionine cyprinid Betadevario ramachandrani, endemic to the Western Ghats in India. Bayesian phylogenetic analysis of all available mitochondrial genomes of Danionina show that B. ramachandrani is the most basal member of a clade also containing Devario, Microdevario and Microrasbora, and this clade is the sister group of Danio. Seven of 20 mitochondrial genomes downloaded from GenBank for phylogenetic analysis were found to be chimeric, including five curated reference genomes, and this did affect our phylogenetic analysis. At least three of these erroneous sequences have been used in other studies. There is reason to suspect that there are numerous chimeric mitogenomes in GenBank.