Abstract
The snapping shrimp Leptalpheus forceps (family Alpheidae) has a unique natural history as an infaunal symbiont of larger burrowing crustaceans. The mitogenome of L. forceps was sequenced, the first for a symbiotic representative of the family and the first for a species outside of the genus Alpheus. The complete mitogenome was 15,463 bp in length and included 13 protein-coding genes, 12 tRNAs, and 2 rRNAs. The gene order matched all known alpheid mitogenomes. Similar to other caridean mitogenomes, the nucleotide composition was A + T biased (62%). A maximum-likelihood phylogenetic analysis of caridean mitogenomes strongly supported monophyly of the family Alpheidae.