The complete sequences of six mitochondrial genomes of H. neanderthalensis have been available for some time; the first H. neanderthalensis mtDNA sequence was published in 2008. How similar are the sequences of the mtDNAs of H. neanderthalensis and H. sapiens? Are the genomes similar in size? Is the amount of diversity observed in the mtDNAs of Neanderthals and humans the same? If not, what might this tell us about the sizes of Neanderthal and human populations? How many genes are present in the H. neanderthalensis mitochondrial genome? How many of these genes encode proteins?

How many specify structural RNA molecules? Are there any pseudogenes in H. neanderthalensis mtDNA? All of these questions can be answered by visiting the http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/ web site.