Mitochondrial cytochrome oxidase subunit I(COI) fragments of Sparus macrocephalus and Sparus latus were amplified using universal primers.By sequencing,the sequence of 581 bp nucleotide was obtained,and the average contents of A,T,G and C were 25.8%,32.6%,18.0% and 23.6% respectively.The content of AT was higher than that of GC,which was similar to the results in other fish.The two sequences showed 14 substituted sites and 13 variable sites between the 19th and the 139th base pairs.The variation frequency of this fragment was relatively high so it was suggested to be a molecular marker to identify Sparus or its population.Comparing with Taius tumifrons,Pagrus major and Pagrus auriga,the transition times were more than transversion times.No insertion and deletion of sites were found.The result of sequence divergence analysis revealed that the discrepancy was from 2.4% to 18.2% between the 5 fishes.The highest was between P.major and S.latus and the lowest was between S.latus and S.macrocephalus.The two sequences were submitted to GenBank,and the accession numbers were DQ185608 and DQ185609.