Phylogenetic analysis of mitochondrial genes of Malaysian tupaia reveals composite species in tupaia glis

Recent morphometric analysis on T. glis in Peninsular Malaysia indicates that
there were more than one morphotypes in this species. Thus this study attempts
to examine this phenomenon using mitochondrial DNA sequences of Cyt b and
CO1 genes. A total of 74 DNA sequences for both genes were generated using
available universal primers. Samples from Southern Thailand were found to be
misidentified as T. glis when in fact these samples clustered with T. belangeri
while one T. tana from Borneo was miss-identified as T. minor. The
phylogenetic trees showed that there are at least one confirmed morphotype of
Tupaia (new Tupaia sp.) that have yet to be described. The results also showed
that the separation of T. glis morphotype 1 and 11 were visible in the combined
genes tree, congruent with the morphometric phylogeny but had poor
phylogenetic support.