Materials and methods

2.1 Sample collection

Since 2011, our team has collected Tetraodontiformes specimens from the coastal waters of China. In the past 11 years, a total of 616 specimens of Tetraodontiformes have been collected (Table 1). After rough classification according to morphologicalcharacteristics, they were preserved in 95% ethanol for subsequent DNA barcode identification. All voucher specimens are deposited in the National Marine Fishery Biological Germplasm Resource Bank.