In the present study, the 17,694-bp long complete mitochondrial genome (mitogenome) of the dwarf honey bee, Apis florea (Hymenoptera: Apidae), is described with an emphasis on the noteworthy triplicated tRNAser(AGN) region and an extraordinary long A+T-rich region with repeat regions. The gene arrangement of A. florea mitogenome is identical to that of A. mellifera, but has triplicated tRNASer(AGN), each of which contains the precedent 44 bp-long and following another 64 bp-long repeats plus one complete first repeat abutting to tRNAMet. A total of 1,610-bp long two repeat regions in 1,987 bp-long A+T-rich region is composed of nearly identical 141 ~ 219-bp long five tandem repeats and 50 ~ 52-bp long 12 tandem repeats that are encompassed by three non-repeat sequences. One of the common interpretations for such repeat sequence is slipped-strand mispairing and unequal crossing-over events during DNA replication.

• Iksoo Kim(College of Agriculture & Life Sciences, Chonnam National University)
• Ratna Thapa(Department of Agricultural Biology, National Academy of Agricultural Science)
• Yong Soo Choi(Department of Agricultural Biology, National Academy of Agricultural Science)
• Jeong Sun Park(College of Agriculture & Life Sciences, Chonnam National University)
• Min Jee Kim(College of Agriculture & Life Sciences, Chonnam National University)
• Ah Rha Wang(College of Agriculture & Life Sciences, Chonnam National University)