Leptosomus discolor (cuckoo roller) genome, bLepDis1, sequence data
The cuckoo-roller (Leptosomus discolor) is the only bird in the order Leptosomiformes. Despite its name, the Cuckoo-roller does not share close evolutionary origins with cuckoos or rollers at all. It is a medium-large bird, inhabiting forests and woodlands in Madagascar and the Comoro Islands (modified from Wikipedia). This sample is from a male in captivity in Walsrode Bird Park, Germany, sampled by Andreas Frie, and coordinated by Tom Gilbert and Erich Jarvis to generate a high-quality reference genome for the Vertebrate Genomes Project (VGP). Sequencing and genome assembly were conducted at the Vertebrate Genomes Lab (VGL) at the Rockefeller University, led by Olivier Fedrigo and Erich D. Jarvis. This sample was used for a previous genome assembly for the Avian Phylogenomics project published in 2014 (GCF_000691785.1).