The blue sheep (Pseudois nayaur nayaur) belongs to the subfamily Caprinae, and is distributed in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and peripheral mountains of China. In this study, the complete mitochondrial genome of P. n. nayaur was sequenced. It was determined to be of 16,700 bases. The nucleotide sequence data of 12 heavy-strand protein-coding genes of P. n. nayaur and other 29 caprine species were used for phylogenetic analysis. Phylogenetic trees were reconstructed by Bayesian and maximum likelihood methods, and it suggested that P. n. nayaur was the sister group of P. schaeferi and P. nayaur, and also indicated a close relationship of genus Pseudois with genus Capra.
Keywords: Caprinae; Pseudois nayaur nayaur; complete mitochondrial genome; phylogeny; protein-coding genes.