Two types of Wilmottia (Cyanobacteria) were collected from the tree-bark of a tree on Mt. Gwanggyo in Suwon City, Gyeonggi-do and a rock wall of Haje Port, Geum River in Jeollabuk-do, Republic of Korea. Morphological observations using light microscopy (LM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) revealed that one species was Wilmottia murrayi (Coleofasciculaceae, Oscillatoriales) and the other had similar morphology to W. murrayi, with considerable genetic variations, and thus, it was described as a new species named Wilmottia koreana. Phylogenetic analyses of the 16S rRNA revealed that the family Coleofasciculaceae was clearly separated into taxonomic groups of each genus, and in them, Wilmottia forms a monophyletic lineage. W. koreana diverged the earliest, forming a unique clade separate from the others. Statistical analyses showed that the inter-species genetic distances of Wilmottia were significantly different from the intra-species distances (t-test, P < 0.001). Additionally, the secondary structures of D1–D1’, Box-B, and the V3 helices were different among the Wilmottia species. These results demonstrated that the proposed new Wilmottia species was unique in molecular traits. Therefore, we propose this to be a new species belonging to the genus Wilmottia with the name Wilmottia koreana sp. nov.

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In this study, the complete mitogenome of brownbranded moon jellyfish Aurelia limbata (Cnidaria, Semaeostomeae, Ulmaridae) was sequenced and analyzed. The linear mitogenome is 16,953 bp long with 37.3% A, 16.8% C, 15.5% G, and 30.4% T nucleotide distributions. Total AT% content is 67.7%, which is the highest AT% content among available Aurelia species complete mitogenome records. Furthermore, phylogenetic relationships of A. limbata in the family Ulmaridae were investigated. According to protein-coding genes based phylogenetic tree, the A. aurita species collected from Korea water is the closest related species to A. limbata.

The cnidarian jellyfishes are impressive organisms to show animal mitochondrial genomic diversities. Their mitogenome structure is linear and tRNA content has one or two in numbers, which is highly different than other metazoans. In this study, a complete mitogenome of the ghost jellyfish Cyanea nozakii (Cnidaria, Semaeostomeae, Cyaneidae) was sequenced and analyzed. The mitgenome is 17,381 bp long with 38.5% A, 16.0% C, 13.9% G, and 31.6% T nucleotide distributions. In addition, phylogenetic relationship of C. nozakii in the class Scyphozoa was investigated by using mitochondrial protein coding genes. Due to results, C. nozakii was positioned in the paraphyletic order Semaeostomeae. This is the first complete mitogenome from the genus Cyanea.

In this study, we sequenced the complete mitochondrial genome of the jellyfish Aurelia coerulea (A. coerulea). The mitochondrial genome was a linear form (16,748 bp long, 65.7% AT), consisting of 13 protein coding genes (PCGs) (cox1, cox2, atp8, atp6, cox3, nad2, nad5, nad6, nad3, nad4L, nad1, nad4, and cytB), 2 rRNAs (12S and 16S), and 2 tRNAs (trnM and trnW). Mitochondrial gene arrangement of the A. coerulea was identical when compared to already-known mitochondrial genomes of Aurelia species. The maximum-likelihood (ML) phylogenetic tree using of 13 mitochondrial proteins showed that A. coerulea collected from Korea waters was closely related to A. limbata.