Complete female mitochondrial genome of .

The controversy surrounding the origin of antitropical distribution of mussels and the taxonomic status of southern hemisphere populations remain unsolved, despite the efforts. One of the limiting factors remains the lack of the complete sequences of the representative mitochondrial genomes which would allow their proper comparison with the relatively well-represented northern hemisphere congeneric mussels. To fill this gap we sequenced the representative maternal (F) genome of a native Chilean mussel. The genome is 16,748bp long and structurally identical to the northern hemisphere and F genomes. However, the genetic distance from them (≈5%) is twice as high as the maximum distance between them (<2.5%). Thus, the notion that the name should be used for native Chilean mussels, with the same rank as and is supported.