Abstract: The phylogenetic relationship between the zerynthiids and the other groups of Papilionidae has long been a controversial issue. In this study, the complete nucleotide sequences of the mitochondrial genome (mitogenome) of Sericinus montela belonging to the zerynthiids was determined using long PCR and conserved primer walking approaches. Meanwhile, the phylogenetic analysis of this species with other representative papilionid species was conducted to clarify their phylogenetic relationships on the mitogenomic level. The results showed that the entire mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) molecule is 15 242 bp in length with the content of A, T, G and C of 40.1%, 40.8%, 7.4% and 11.7%, respectively, and its nucleotide composition of the genome is highly A+T biased (80.8%); all the 13 protein coding genes (PCGs) use standard initiation codons ATN, and all the PCGs use common stop codon (TAA), except for the ND4 and ND4L genes, which terminate with a single T; all tRNA genes form a typical clover-leaf secondary structure, except for the tRNA^Ser (AGN), whose DHU arm forms a simple loop; there are twelve intergenic spacer regions ranging from 2 to 65 bp in size, and fifteen overlaps ranging from 1 to 8 bp in size in the mitogenome sequence. The neighbor joining and maximum parsimony phylogenetic analyses based on the 13 PCG sequences showed that Sericins montela and Luehdorfia chinensis form a clade that is sister to the Parnassius bremeri, suggesting that they should be designated as a taxon of tribal level within the subfamily Parnassiinae in the family of Papilionidae.

Key words: Lepidoptera, Papilionidae; Sericinus montela, mitochondrial genome, phylogenetic analysis