This work used small (12S rRNA) mitochondrial rRNA gene to assess the evolutionary connections of some species of the cardinal fishes belonging to order Kurtiformes. Small mitochondrial rRNA sequences varied in length from 920 to 944 base pairs. Of the 947 characters in the aligned 12S rRNA data set, 834 were consistent sites, 19 were parsimony informative, and 111 were variable. Small mitochondrial rRNA sequences' nucleotides were uploaded to GenBank with accession numbers (PP830791-PP830794). The P-distances among the understudied cardinalfish species, expanded from 0.0060 to 0.0130. The highest value (0.0130) was found between Cheilodipterus novemstriatus and Ostorhinchus fasciatus. While, the lowest P-distance (0.0060) was found between Cheilodipterus quinquelineatus and Cheilodipterus macrodon. Our results demonstrated the utility of 12S rRNA in the phylogenetic analysis of the cardinalfish species.