COI Gene: A Reliable Tool for Tracing the Phylogeny in Sphingid Moths (Lepidoptera: Sphingidae)

In the current study, a partial sequence of 536 bp (approx) of COI gene for seven species belonging to family Sphingidae were analysed. The study was conducted on a collection of moths from northern India, mainly in the states of Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Punjab. The sequences have been added to the database at GenBank NCBI. The analysis showed mean K2P divergence of 0.59% at intraspecific level, 6.3% at interspecific and 12.2% at intergeneric level. The analysis showed a hierarchal increase in K2P mean divergence across different taxonomic levels giving an intraspecific range of 0.0% to 3.6%, interspecific range of 5.8% to 9.3% and intergeneric range of 8.6% to 13.8%.