Objective  Mitochondrial genome and phylogenetic relationship in Staphylininae subfamily of Philonthus spinipes (Sharp, 1874) were determined.

  Method  The high-throughput sequencing technique was applied to secure the full length mitochondrial genome of P. spinipes. A phylogenetic analysis was conducted to decipher the beetle’s relationship in the Staphylininae subfamily. Using 21 exemplars of Staphylininae and 8 of Paederinae as ingroups as well as two Pselaphinae species as outgroups, the phylogeny was reconstructed with the maximum likelihood (ML) and Bayesian inference (BI) methods.

  Result   The mitochondrial genome of P. spinipes was a circular molecule of 16 219 bp with the GenBank accession number of OL998729. It contained 13 protein-coding genes, 22 transfer RNA genes, two ribosomal RNA genes, and a non-coding control region. Most of the protein-coding genes started with ATT, ATA, or ATG, but nad6 did with ATC and nad1 with TTG. And cox1, cox2, cox3, and nad5 had an incomplete T or TA as the stop codon, while the remaining 9 genes terminated with TAA or TAG. All tRNA genes, except trnS1 which lacked the DHU arm, could be folded into a typical cloverleaf-like structure. The lengths of rrnL and rrnS were 1 275 bp and 765 bp with the A+T contents of 79.84% and 76.47%, respectively.

  Conclusion   The two applied phylogenetic inference methods produced a similar tree topological structure that showed Paederinae to be monophyletic, Staphylininae non-monophyletic, and Paederinae nested within the Staphylininae subfamily.