On 2014 Jun 23, A Rus Hoelzel commented:

This is an odd comment, in that we have had no contact from Genbank, only PubMed about the existence of a comment, and only just today. Also there are only two haplotypes from the archaeological samples not 5 (see Table 2), and both match 100% to Tursiops sequences from various sources found on Genbank using BLAST. However, the two haplotypes mentioned do match mostly Delphinus, but also retrieve Stenella and Tursiops sequences. They are up to 3 bp different from Delphinus, and 2 bp different from Tursiops and Stenella haplotypes. The delphinid radiation is shallow based on mtDNA control region data and polytomous even for multi-locus trees for these three genera. This sequence is only 171 bp long, and generates only a complete polytomy in phylogenetic reconstructions. These two haplotypes that match Delphinus for this short sequence could conceivably represent misidentified samples (from modern stranded animals on the UK coast), but I wouldn’t have much confidence in using 171bp of control region as a barcode to identify species from this group of genera even from a phylogeny, and BLAST is really a very imperfect tool for this. Note that from this same study samples with these two haplotypes assigned with other UK Tursiops samples based on microsatellite DNA genotypes.

On 2014 Jun 17, Andrew Foote commented:

Caution: Two out of the five mtDNA haplotypes generated from the archeological samples (GenBank accession nos: EF540867 and EF540868) are a 100% match for common dolphin (Delphinus delphis) and only a 98% match for any other bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus) sequences when using the BLAST search implemented in GenBank. The NCBI have been made aware of this taxonomic misidentification and have contacted the sequence submitter (Dr A. Rus Hoelzel), but at present any change requires permission from the sequence submitter. Unfortunately in this case the data submitter does not appear willing to correct the taxonomic classification.

On 2014 Jun 17, Andrew Foote commented:

Caution: Two out of the five mtDNA haplotypes generated from the archeological samples (GenBank accession nos: EF540867 and EF540868) are a 100% match for common dolphin (Delphinus delphis) and only a 98% match for any other bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus) sequences when using the BLAST search implemented in GenBank. The NCBI have been made aware of this taxonomic misidentification and have contacted the sequence submitter (Dr A. Rus Hoelzel), but at present any change requires permission from the sequence submitter. Unfortunately in this case the data submitter does not appear willing to correct the taxonomic classification.

On 2014 Jun 23, A Rus Hoelzel commented:

This is an odd comment, in that we have had no contact from Genbank, only PubMed about the existence of a comment, and only just today. Also there are only two haplotypes from the archaeological samples not 5 (see Table 2), and both match 100% to Tursiops sequences from various sources found on Genbank using BLAST. However, the two haplotypes mentioned do match mostly Delphinus, but also retrieve Stenella and Tursiops sequences. They are up to 3 bp different from Delphinus, and 2 bp different from Tursiops and Stenella haplotypes. The delphinid radiation is shallow based on mtDNA control region data and polytomous even for multi-locus trees for these three genera. This sequence is only 171 bp long, and generates only a complete polytomy in phylogenetic reconstructions. These two haplotypes that match Delphinus for this short sequence could conceivably represent misidentified samples (from modern stranded animals on the UK coast), but I wouldn’t have much confidence in using 171bp of control region as a barcode to identify species from this group of genera even from a phylogeny, and BLAST is really a very imperfect tool for this. Note that from this same study samples with these two haplotypes assigned with other UK Tursiops samples based on microsatellite DNA genotypes.