DNA barcoding enhances the prospects for species-level identifications globally using a standardized and
authenticated DNA-based approach. Reference libraries comprising validated DNA barcodes (COI) constitute robust
datasets for testing query sequences, providing considerable utility to identify marine fish and other organisms. Here we
test the feasibility of using DNA barcoding to assign species to tissue samples from fish collected in the central
Mediterranean Sea, a major contributor to the European marine ichthyofaunal diversity