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Chondracanthus teedei and C. chamissoi are regarded as cosmopolitan and endemic species, respectively. To verify the geographic distribution of these two species, we analyzed specimens of C. teedei from the Western Pacific and the Atlantic coast of Spain, as well as of C. chamissoi from Chile using plastid rbcL and mitochondrial COI genes. The phylogenetic tree of rbcL revealed that ' C. teedei' from Asia and Chondracanthus sp. from France are conspecific with C. chamissoi from Chile, but distinct from the clade of C. teedei from the Atlantic. These results indicate that C. chamissoi is not exclusively distributed in the southeastern Pacific, but is also found in Korea/Japan and France, whereas C. teedei is found in the Atlantic and not in the western Pacific region. This study demonstrated that the range of C. chamissoi is wider than previously thought, raising interesting questions regarding the transportation vector and the absence of C. teedei from Korea and Japan. In addition, we confirmed that molecular analyses can be used to examine the geographic distribution of marine macroalgae. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]