Phylogenetic Diversity of Some Small Mammals From Sciurudae Family in Mongolia

Abstract

The squirrel family, Sciuridae, is one of the largest and widespread, ecologically common families of mammals. Due to the conspicuousness of this small mammal group with a big population, insufficient knowledge exists about its phylogenetic relationships. In this study, we identified 14 DNA sequences of mitochondrial cytochrome oxidase I gene in 6 species of Sciuridae and these sequences were compared with corresponding published COI gene sequences of the same species in Eurasia and determined their phylogenetic relationships by Neighbor-joining method.