Evolutionary status of the invasive American mink Neovison vison revealed by complete mitochondrial genome

The American mink, Neovison vison, is native to North America and listed as one of the most widely distributed invasive species into the Eurasian mainland. Even though facing serious over-hunting and habitat degradation problems, this species has successfully dispersed into most areas of northeast China in the past decades, which may have a huge impact on local species composition and structure. We determined and annotated the whole mitochondrial DNA genome of the American mink N. vison to better understand the evolutionary relationship of this invasive species with other Mustelidae distributing in China. The complete mitogenome is 16 627 bp in length, includes 13 protein-coding genes, 22 tRNA genes, 2 rRNA genes and one control region. We built the phylogenetic tree of American mink and other 10 most closely Mustelidae species.