Carangidae are ecologically and economically important marine fish. The complete mitogenomes of three Carangidae species (Alectis indicus, Decapterus tabl, and Alepes djedaba) were sequenced, characterized, and compared with 29 other species of the family Carangidae in this study. The length of the three mitogenomes ranged from 16,530 to 16,610 bp, and the structures included 2 rRNA genes (12S rRNA and 16S rRNA), 1 control region (a non-coding region), 13 protein-coding genes, and 22 tRNA genes. Among the 22 tRNA genes, only tRNA-Ser (GCT) was not folded into a typical cloverleaf secondary structure and had no recognizable DHU stem. The full-length sequences and protein-coding genes (PCGs) of the mitogenomes of the three species all had obvious AT biases. The majority of the AT-skew and GC-skew values of the PCGs among the three species were negative, demonstrating bases T and C were more plentiful than A and G. Analyses of Ka/Ks and overall p-genetic distance demonstrated that ATP8 showed the highest evolutionary rate and COXI/COXII were the most conserved genes in the three species. The phylogenetic tree based on PCGs sequences of mitogenomes using maximum likelihood and Bayesian inference analyses showed that three clades were divided corresponding to the subfamilies Caranginae, Naucratinae, and Trachinotinae. The monophyly of each superfamily was generally well supported. The divergence time analyses showed that Carangidae evolved during three geological periods, the Cretaceous, Paleogene, and Neogene. A. indicus began to differentiate from other species about 27.20 million years ago (Mya) in the early Miocene, while D. tabl (21.25 Mya) and A. djedaba (14.67 Mya) differentiated in the middle Oligocene.
Keywords: Alectis indicus; Alepes djedaba; Decapterus tabl; comparative characterization; mitochondrial genome; phylogeneny.