Abstract
The Japanese eel (Anguilla japonica), which was listed as Endangered (EN) under the International Union for the Conservation of Nature due to the declines in its abundance, overfishing, and its narrow range distribution. To better protect this species, we described the complete mitogenome of A. japonica in this study. The mitogenome is 16717bp in length and contains 13PCGs, two rRNA genes (12S rRNA and 16S rRNA), 22 tRNA genes, and a putative control region (CR) and one origin of replication on the light-strand (OL). Moreover, the 13 PCGs encode 3813 amino acids in total, all the protein-coding genes use the initiation codon ATG except COI uses GTG. Most of them have TAA or TAG as the stop codon, except COI uses AGG and two PCGs (COII and ND4) use an incomplete stop codon T. A phylogenetic tree based on the Neighbour Joining method was constructed to provide relationship within Anguilla, which could be a useful basis for conservation of this species.