DNA barcoding of commercially important snapper species (Lutjaniformes; Lutjanidae; ) from Visakhapatnam, Central Eastern coast of India.

Snappers are commercially important fishes in Indian waters, currently belonging to the order Lutjaniformes, family Lutjanidae. Generally, recognizing species of is a challenging task not only because of overlapping morphological characters, such as shapes, size groups, or colour patterns, but also based on the definition of the species concept or the definition of the threshold for speciation. In India there has not been any updated and accurate study of the genus so far. Besides, identification of the group based on ecological aspects and DNA barcoding tools were confined to limited laboratories. In the present study, ten species of snappers were identified from samples obtained from the major fish landing centres in the Visakhapatnam, Central Eastern coast of India. Snapper species were identified using COI (Cytochrome oxidase I) sequences for DNA barcoding. The validity of the conjecture species-level taxonomy based on COI is assisted with high equivalence search (98-100%) both in BOLD and BLAST, well-distributed genetic distance values.