Complete Mitochondrial Genomes and Evolutionary Insights of Two Commercially Farmed Edible Crickets (Gryllus bimaculatus and Teleogryllus mitratus) from Thailand

As global food security challenges intensify, edible crickets are increasingly recognized as a sustainable alternative protein source; however, genomic resources for commercially important species remain limited, restricting evolutionary inference and the development of robust tools for farm management. In this study, we sequenced and assembled new complete mitochondrial genomes of Gryllus bimaculatus and Teleogryllus mitratus from commercial farms in Thailand using high-throughput Illumina sequencing, achieving high coverage depths of 32,391× and 63,258×, respectively. The circular mitochondrial genomes were 15,955 bp and 16,046 bp in length and exhibited the typical insect mitochondrial gene complement of 37 genes (13 protein-coding genes, 22 tRNAs, and 2 rRNAs), with strong AT bias. Selective pressure analyses indicated pervasive purifying selection across all mitochondrial PCGs (ω < 1), while episodic diversifying selection was detected in cox1, cox3, cytb, and nad5, while atp8 displayed a comparatively elevated ω. Codon usage analyses revealed a strong preference for AT-ending codons, with leucine codons showing the highest bias. Phylogenetic analyses using concatenated protein-coding and ribosomal RNA genes recovered well-supported relationships within Gryllidae. Collectively, these farm-derived mitogenomes provide practical foundations for molecular species authentication, population monitoring, and comparative analyses relevant to breeding and traceability, and they nominate candidate mitochondrial genes for future work on environmental adaptation and performance under farming conditions.