Glyceraldehyde 3-phosphate dehydrogenase(GAPDH) is a key enzyme for carbohydrate metabolism in most living organisms. Recent reports and our own searches of teleost species in publicly available genomic databases have identified at least two distinct GAPDH genes in a given species. The two GAPDH genes are located on the same chromosome in teleosts, whereas they are located on the different chromosomes in mammals. Thus, we reconstructed a phylogenetic tree to better understand the evolutionary history of the GAPDH genes in the vertebrate lineage. Our phylogenetic analysis revealed unambiguously that the two GAPDH genes of teleosts are phylogenetically closely affiliated to one of the cytosolic GAPDH and spermatogenic GAPDH-S of mammals. This indicates that the two paralogous GAPDH genes shared a common ancestor and subsequently underwent a gene duplication event during early vertebrate evolution. However, GAPDH-S of teleosts showed significant differences in the polypeptide residues and tissue distribution of its mRNA transcripts from that of mammals, implying they have undergone a different history of functionalization.