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Abstract
Prays oleae is one of the most important olive tree pests and a species of interest in evolutionary studies, as it belongs to one of the oldest extant superfamilies of Ditrysian Lepidoptera. We determined its mitogenome sequence, and found it has common features for Lepidoptera, e.g. an >80% A + T content, an apparent CGA start codon for COX1 and an ATAGA(T)n motif in the control region, which also contains several copies of a 163-164 bp repeat. Importantly, the mitogenome displays the Met-Ile-Gln tRNA gene order typical of Ditrysia, consistent with the hypothesis that this is a synapomorphy of that clade.
Declaration of interest
This work was funded by Portuguese National Funds through FCT (Foundation for Science and Technology) under Strategic Project PEst-C/AGR/UI0115/2011 and project ALENT-07-0324-FEDER-001747, as well as by FEDER Funds through the latter project and Operational Programme for Competitiveness Factors - COMPETE. BA and LTC were funded by FCT grants SFRH/BPD/73108/2010 and Ciência2008-ICAAM, respectively. Additional funding was provided by Luís Teixeira da Costa, to overcome arbitrary limitations imposed by the Portuguese finance minister in April 2013. Funding agencies had no influence on content or writing of the paper, for which the author is solely responsible.