Phylogeny of Muntiacus (Cervidae) based on mitochondrial DNA restriction maps.

Mitochondrial DNA restriction maps for 12 restriction enzymes of four species of muntjacs--Indian muntjac (M. muntjak), Gongshan muntjac (M. gongshanensis), black muntjac (M. crinifrons), and Chinese muntjac (M. reevesi)--were compared to estimate the phylogenetic relationships among them. Phylogenetic trees were constructed by both distance and parsimony methods. The two resulting trees share a similar topology, which indicates that the black muntjac and the Gongshan muntjac are closely related, followed by the Chinese muntjac; the Indian muntjac is the sister taxon to all the other muntjacs.