The complete mitochondrial genome of an orb-weaving spider Araneus ventricosus was determined. It is a circular molecule of 14,617 bp in length and contains a standard set of 13 protein-coding genes, 2 ribosomal RNAs, 22 transfer RNAs and a control region. The A + T content of the overall base composition of majority strand (J-strand) is 73.4% (T: 38.5%; C: 10.1%; A: 34.9%; G: 16.5%). Among protein-coding genes, one gene (COI) begins with TTA, two (ATP6 and ND4) start with ATA, three (COII, COIII and ND6) begin with ATT and other seven genes use ATT as initiation codon. COIII and ND3 end with an incomplete stop codon (T), and ND1, ND2 and Cytb are terminated with TAG, while all other genes end with TAA as stop codon. Two regions including tandem repeats were found in the control region (D-loop): a 106 bp sequence tandemly repeated twice and a 195 bp sequence tandemly repeated twice with a partial third (120 bp).
Keywords: Araneidae; araneus ventricosus; mitogenome.