The complete mitochondrial genome of great cormorant, Phalacrocorax carbo (Phalacrocorax, Phalacrocoracidae).

The great cormorant (Phalacrocorax carbo) is widely distributed in the world. Here, we report the complete mitogenome sequence of P. carbo, which was 18,995 bp long and composed of 15 protein-coding genes, 25 tRNA genes, 2 rRNA genes and 2 control regions. Most genes were located on H-strand except for 10 tRNAs and 2 ND6 genes. In protein-coding genes, ATG, ATC and GTG were used as initiation codons, and TAA, AGA, AGG and TAG were used as stop codons. The 25 tRNA genes ranged in size from 67 to 75 bp. And 12S and 16S rRNA were respectively 983 and 1517 bp. Except for a tRNA-Ala in P. carbo which was different from the tRNA-Lys annotated in P. chalconotus, both species of Phalacrocorax had the same order of other genes. In addition, a phylogenetic analysis may help us understand the evolutionary status of this widespread species better.