The phylogenetic relationships among flesh flies of the family Sarcophagidae has been based mainly on the morphology of male genitalia. However, the male genitalic character-based relationships are far from satisfactory. Therefore, in the present study mitochondrial DNA has been used as marker to unravel genetic relatedness and to construct phylogeny among five sympatric species of the genus Sarcophaga. Two mitochondrial genes viz., cytochrome oxidase subunit 1 (COI) and NAD dehydrogenase subunit 5 (ND5) were sequenced and genetic distance values were calculated on the basis of sequence differences in both the mitochondrial genes. The data revealed very few genetic difference among the five species for the COI and ND5 gene sequences.

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SummaryThe present study comprises a description of mitotic chromosomes and the distribution of AT-rich DNA in the complements of 9 species of flesh flies of the genus Boettcherisca, B. koimani, B. karnyi, B. nepalensis, B. invaria, B. septentrionalis, B. peregrina, B. timorensis, B. nathani and B. javanica. All the species have 12 chromosomes in their diploid complement with 5 pairs of meta/submetacentric autosomes and a pair of small dot-like sex chromosomes-XX in the females and XY in the males. Staining with fluorochrome DAPI/AMD reveals distinct fluorochrome bright areas on centromeric regions of some chromosomes of each species. However, the distributions of AT-rich heterochromatic areas do not follow any regular pattern among the 9 species.Key words Boettcherisca, Mitotic chromosomes, Heterochromatin, DAPI, Fluorescence.Flesh flies of the genus Boettcherisca are distributed in the tropical and temperate areas of Indo-Australian region. The genus includes 15 species, which have the typical appearance of flesh flies i.e. 3 black longitudinal stripes on the scutum, and black-and-white checkered pattern on the abdomen. The adults of these species can only be distinguished on the basis of their male genitalia (Kano and Shinonaga 1977, Kano and Sugiyama 1983, Pape 1996. Phenetic and phyletic analysis of 11 species from the genus, based on numerical taxonomic methods, has revealed the existence of 2 monophyletic subgroups, namely the peregrina subgroup including peregrina-nathani-javanicatimorensis and the septentrionalis subgroup consisting of septentrionalis-formosensis-cabreraiinvaria, as well as the paraphyletic karnyi subgroup of hypothetical ancestor-karnyi-nepalensiskoimani (Kurahashi and Kano 1984).Present paper describes mitotic chromosomes and distributions of AT rich heterochromatic areas in the mitotic complement of 9 species belonging to the genus Boettcherisca and its bearing on relationship of the 3 subgroups, if any. Material and methodsNine species of flesh flies belonging to the genus Boettcherisca Rohdendorf were collected from different places (Table 1). Stock cultures of all the species were started from single wild female collected on bait in the field and routinely maintained in the laboratory (Kurahashi and Ohtaki 1989).Neural ganglia from colchicine pre-treated third instar larvae were dissected out in saline (0.75%), incubated in hypotonic solution (0.45% sodium citrate in double distilled water) for 5 min, then fixed in freshly prepared aceto alcohol (1 part glacial acetic acid and 3 part ethanol). The

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