Aim A small fauna of amphibious snails (genus Assiminea Fleming, 1828) living in association with highly mineralized springs in the Death Valley?lower Colorado River region (DVLCR) is thought to be a relict of the Bouse Embayment, a putative late Miocene?early Pliocene transgression of the ancestral Gulf of California along the lower Colorado River valley. We analysed the phylogenetic relationships of this fauna using mtDNA sequence data (1171 bp) to determine whether, as would be consistent with this hypothesis, it forms a substantially divergent unit sister to marine coastal congeners. Location South-western Great Basin and lower Colorado River region, USA. Methods Two genes [mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase subunit I (COI) and [...]
