Taxonomic revision of the humpback dolphin Sousa pulmbea (Cetacea: Delphinidae) from the Persian Gulf and Oman Sea, using mitochondrial D-LOOP Gene.

The present study investigated phylogeny of Iranian (the Persian Gulf and Oman Sea) humpback dolphin, using mitochondrial D-LOOP gene. As a result, four sequences of D-LOOP were obtained from the four Iranian specimens and were compared with available sequences of the members of the genus Sousa from the GeneBank (NCBI). For phylogenetic analyses we used two methods, Maximum Likelihood and Bayesian Inference. In the analyses of D-LOOP, all Iranian sequences group firmly together with Indian specimen under a supported clade (bootstrap value = 98 in ML tree, posterior probability = 1 in BI tree). The Indo-Iranian clade clustered firmly with the clade of Sousa plumbea from west of Indian Ocean and South Africa. This finding proof that the Iranian humpback dolphin does not belong to S. chinensis, as previously were recorded, but belongs to S. plumbea. To address the phylogeny with better resolution, careful morphological examination along with using more mitochondrial and nuclear markers are suggested.