Incorporating mitogenome sequencing into integrative taxonomy: The multidisciplinary redescription of the ciliate Thuricola similis (Peritrichia, Vaginicolidae) provides new insights into the evolutionary relationships among Oligohymenophorea subclasses.

The evolutionary relationships among Oligohymenophorea subclasses are under debate as the phylogenomic analysis using a large dataset of nuclear coding genes is significantly different to the 18S rDNA phylogeny, and it is unfortunately not stable within and across different published studies. In addition to nuclear genes, the faster-evolving mitochondrial genes have also shown the ability to solve phylogenetic problems in many ciliated taxa. However, due to the paucity of mitochondrial data, the corresponding work is scarce, let alone the phylogenomic analysis based on mitochondrial gene dataset.