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The sequences of 16S rDNA, cytochrome oxidase subunit I ( COI) and cytochrome b ( Cyt b) genes from nine field collections (seven provinces in China: Guangxi, Hubei, Guangdong, Guizhou, Zhejiang, Hunan, Jiangxi, and also southern and northern part of Iran), plus the sequences of Africa, Europe, Americas and Japan obtained form GenBank were used to re-analyse the genetic variation in the southern green stink bug Nezara viridula (Linnaeus). The phylogeographic re-analysis by using four algorithms (NJ, MP, ML and Bayesian) showed three main lineages. The Iranian haplotypes fell into lineage II formed from Europe and America, rather than in lineage III from Asia; the Chinese haplotypes fell into the Asian clade. Our results suggested that African and non-African gene pools have been isolated since the Miocene era with the molecular clock calibrations for Heteroptera mtDNA, and not since the Pliocene as mentioned previously. The corresponding age of the separation of the eastern and western Asia clades is estimated to be 4.0-1.6 million years ago, coinciding with the Pliocene-Pleistocene epoch and with acute rising events in the Tibet Plateau locates in the western China, which may have formed the barriers observed today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]