Opisthocomus hoazin (hoatzin) genome, bOpiHoa1, sequence data
The hoatzin is a tropical bird species found in swamps of the Amazon and the Orinoco basins in South America. It is the only extant species in the genus Opisthocomus. The phylogenic position of the haotzin has been greatly debated, in part due to a long branch without any other relatives that goes nearly back to the extinction of dinosaurs. Unlike other birds, the chicks have claws on two of their wing digits. It eats only leaves. In Colombia they call it the Pava hedionda ("disgusting turkey") though it does not always stink as people sometimes claim. They are usually found near bodies of water (rivers, lakes, ponds). This sample is from a female located at the Reserva Barcelona de la Universidad de los Llanos, Villavicencio, Colombia, collected by Andrew Crawford, and used to generate a high-quality reference genome for the Vertebrate Genomes Project (VGP) and Colossal BioSciences. Sequencing and genome assembly were conducted at the Vertebrate Genomes Lab (VGL) at the Rockefeller University, led by Olivier Fedrigo and Erich D. Jarvis.