javascript:void(0)Potential wildlife forensic application
A BLAST search identified five cytB sequences on GenBank that
were identical or almost identical (1 bp difference) to those in this
study (across 304 bp of overlapping sequence, Fig. A1). These sequences
were reported by Xie et al. (2021) for Chinese pangolin samples
that were obtained from a pharmaceutical company located in China. Such
high similarity indicates these samples may have been derived from the
Nepal region and demonstrates the potential power of mtDNA sequencing
for wildlife forensic applications. This finding, however, must be
considered with caution, due to a lack of knowledge regarding the extent
of the genetic haplotype variants revealed in this study.