The famous coelacanth, Latimeria chalumnae,
in its natural environment. Mitogenomic studies do not place it as a sister group to the tetrapods. Image courtesy of and copyright Hans Fricke.
Rasmussen et al.s’ (1998) results prompted the sequencing of complete mtDNAs from cartilaginous fishes. The first sequenced taxa were the spiny dogfish,
Squalus acanthias,
(Rasmussen and Arnason 1999a) and the starry skate,
Raja radiata
(Rasmussen and Arnason 1999b). These species were followed by the ratfish,
