Octopuses are one of the commercially
important fishery resource form the Indian
coast and there is a targeted fishery for
octopus in many fish landing centres in
Kerala. There are lot of taxonomic ambiguities
within the octopus species and the accurate
identification of species is of prior importance
in conserving such vulnerable species. With a
view to identify and genetically catalogue the
octopus species of Kerala coast, specimens
were collected from different landing centres
of the region. Molecular characterization was
done with partial sequence information of
mitochondrial gene Cytochrome C oxidase-I
(COI) gene. Total 17 specimens of 7 species
were collected from 4 locations and COI
sequences were generated (650 bp). 7 species
included viz, three ocellate octopus, belonging
to the genus Amphioctopus; (Amphioctopus
neglectus. A. marginatus and A. rex), two
from genus Cistopus: (Cistopus Indicus and C.
taiwanicus), one each from Octopus vulgaris
and Callistoctopus macropus. Both genus of
Cistopus and Amphioctopus showed the intra
and inter specific distance ranging from 0.0-1.0
% and 7.0-21.0 %, respectively. Phylogenetic
analysis using maximum likelihood approach
revealed that all the genera of the family
Octopodidae are monophyletic
