The complete mitochondrial genome sequence of Heliconius hecale (Insecta: Lepidoptera: Nymphalidae)

AbstractThe complete mitochondrial genome of the Tiger Longwing Heliconius hecale has been reconstructed from whole-genome Illumina sequencing data with an average coverage of 1507×. The circular genome is 15,338 bp in length, consisting of 13 protein-coding genes (PCGs), 22 transfer RNAs (tRNAs), 2 ribosomal RNAs (rRNAs) and 1 D-loop or control region. All PCGs initiated with ATN codons, except for the COI and ND1 genes with CGA and TTG as their start codons, respectively. Three PCGs (COI, COII and ND4) have an incomplete stop codon T, the ND3 gene harbors the stop codon TAG, while all the other PCGs terminated with the TAA codon. The nucleotide composition is highly asymmetric (39.5% A, 42.1% T, 7.5% G, and 10.9% C) with an overall GC content of 18.4%.