The taxonomy and phylogeny of brachyuran crabs, and particularly of the Podotremata, have been the subjects of controversy due to their morphological diversity and complexity. The first complete mitochondrial genome (mitogenome) sequence of primitive crab Homologenus malayensis has been determined. The mitogenome is 15,793 bp in length, with A + T content 71.7%. The gene content and order are consistent with those in typical brachyuran crabs. A putative control region of 883 bp is identified due to its position (between srRNA and tRNA(Ile)) and AT richness (75.5%). Notably, the control region in H. malayensis contains nine identical specific repeat units of 42 bp and 11 identical repeat units of 2 bp with a total length of 400 bp, which is different from other crabs. These results are expected to provide useful information on both genomics and the future phylogenetic study of primitive crabs.
Keywords: Homolidae; Homologenus malayensis; Podotremata; mitochondrial genome; non-coding region; phylogenetics.