Steatornis caripensis (oilbird) genome, bSteCar1, sequence data
The oilbird (Steatornis caripensis), locally known as the guacharo, is a bird species found in the northern areas of South America including the Caribbean island of Trinidad. Nesting in colonies in caves, oilbirds are nocturnal feeders on the fruits of the oil palm and tropical laurels. They are the only nocturnal flying fruit-eating birds in the world (the kakapo, also nocturnal, is flightless) (from Wikipedia entry). This sample of a female individual found in Colombia was procured by Adriana Maldonado and Juliana Fonseca of Universidad del Rosario to generate a high-quality reference genome for the Vertebrate Genomes Project (VGP). Sequencing and genome assembly were conducted at the Vertebrate Genome Lab (VGL) at the Rockefeller University, led by Erich D. Jarvis, Giulio Formenti, and Jennifer Balacco.