Measurement of the genetic distance is an another tool to
evaluate similarity of an unknown sequence with a pool of reference
samples. In this study, the genetic distances of S. pilchardus
was easily differentiated from the Engraulidae species studied, as
well as from the other Clupeidae species (0.18) (Table 2). The
divergence was similar for S.aurita. The nucleotide divergence
between Clupeidae and Engraulidae families was confirmed. The
genetic distance measured between S. pilchardus and the three
types of S. aurita species was 0.19 the divergence was 0.05 between
Engraulis species and 0.02 between Sardinella species.