Morphological and molecular evidence supports the occurrence of a single species of Zebrias zebrinus along the coastal waters of China

The so-called zebra sole includes a group of small flatfishes characterized by transverse band pairs on the ocular side and distributed throughout shallow waters along the coast of the Indo-West Pacific Ocean. Several species of the zebra sole have been recorded from the coastal waters of China. Morphological analysis of 1107 specimens of the zebra sole from 15 successive localities along the China's coast demonstrated that no significant variations among these localities were found on the basis of meristic counts and morphometric characters. Phylogenetic analysis based on COI gene sequences of 14 individuals and D-loop of 22 individuals from eight localities showed that they were indistinguishable among these localities. Therefore, both morphological and molecular evidence supported the occurrence of a single species of the zebra sole along the China's coast. The available name for this species is Zebrias zebrinus (Temminck and Schlegel, 1846) instead of Z. zebra (Bloch, 1787). Zebrias fasciatus (Basilewsky, 1855) and Solea ommatura (Richardson, 1846) are considered here as two synonyms of Z. zebrinus.