Abstract

Genetic variability and differentiation of three families containing 12 species of toothed whales mainly from the sea around Japan have been examined by starch-gel electrophoresis at 19 genetic loci encoding enzymes. The amount of genic variations presented by proportion of polymorphic loci and average heterozygosity of whole species studied were 0.207±0.151 and 0.063±0.051, respectively, and were found to be similar to the average of other vertebrates. The genetic distances and genetic identities among the species, genera and families of the toothed whales studied were discussed, and the degree of genetic divergence of given taxonomic levels were shown to be low in comparison with corresponding taxa of other organisms. The phylogenetic relationships among the species studied were estimated by the dendrogram of genetic distances.