Chitra chitra (striped narrow-headed giant softshell turtle) genome, rChiChi1, sequence data
The striped narrow-headed giant softshell turtle (Chitra chitra) is a large species of softshell turtle in the family Trionychidae. The species is endemic to Southeast Asia (from Wikipedia entry). This sample of a wild-caught male individual at the Saint Louis Zoo originating in Indonesia was procured by Jane Merkel and coordinated by Paul Hime 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. During genome assembly, only one haplotype was assembled at high BUSCO completeness, with the other haplotype almost completely missing BUSCO marker genes. This is likely a result of extremely low heterozygosity from inbreeding. We have regardless submitted both the primary and alternate haplotypes as researchers may find the contigs of use.