The Puntius is a very common fresh water fish in Asian tropics that has not yet been surveyed at the intra-specific level (Nelson 2006). A study was conducted based on. partial mitochondrial 16S ribosomal RNA (rRNA) gene sequences from 32 Puntius fishes four out groups were examined to reconstruct the phylogenetic relationships within the diverse and economically important genus Puntius in Malaysia . The topologies resulting from maximum parsimony, and Bayesian, analysis tree are broadly congruent, with 2 main clades and 4 sub clade among Puntius; however, limited genetic information from only a single mitochondrial gene prevents us from recommending taxonomic change without further investigation.

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