Genetic diversity and molecular phylogeny among six endemic fishes of the Western Ghats belonging to Dawkinsia genus was studied. The partial sequence of Cytochrome Oxidase subunit I (COI) gene sequences were generated for five species namely Dawkinsia filamentosa, D. assimilis, D. rohani, D. tambraparniei and D. exclamatio. The amplification of COI gene was done using suitable primers, followed by direct sequencing, analysis of nucleotide variation and phylogenetic analysis were carried out. The COI sequence of Dawkinsia arulius retrieved from GenBank database for phylogenetic analysis. The mitochondrial COI gene of Dawkinsia species exhibited 50 polymorphic and 18 parsimony informative sites between species. The pairwise genetic distance between the studied species were ranged from 0.008 to 0.075. The present study inferred that these species exhibit very close genetic similarity between the Dawkinsia filamentosa group.
