A MOLECULAR PHYLOGENY OF THE REMORAS AND THEIR RELATIVES.

The article presents a study on the molecular phylogeny of remoras or Echeneoidea and relative species, Coryphanenidae or dolphinfishes and Rachycentridae or cobia, which comprise the family of Echeneoidea. It examines the evolutionary relationships within the Echeneoidea members through the analyses of the concatenated mitochondrial DNA sequences and concatenated mitochondrial and nuclear DNA sequences. Hypotheses generated using the optimality criterion parsimony, likelihood and Bayesian, were largely consistent between M-only and M + N gene phylogenies. The study resolves that the Echeneoidea was a monophyletic group, while the genus of Remora was paraphyletic.