GYMNOGYPS CALIFORNIANUS
Gymnogyps californianus
The California condor (Gymnogyps californianus) is the largest North American flying bird, part of the nature''s cleanup crew, and a flagship species for conservation. Over the 20th century, there was a rapid decline in the condor population. In 1985, only nine birds remained in the wild and in about 1980 a California condor rescue and restoration program was created. The last bird was removed from the wild in 1987. Captive breeding was successful and condors were reintroduced to central California (Los Padres National Forest), Grand Canyon area in Arizona, Monterey County, California, and in Baja, Mexico.   The California condor is among the first endangered avian species under captive management for which genetic and genomic investigation technologies are being developed and used. The condor genome project targets creation of novel genomic resources for this species. A blood sample from a 14 year old female condor was used as the DNA source for clone-based sequencing using selected clones from a BAC library and a microsatellite-enriched library. In 2006, the Washington University Genome Sequencing Center generated almost 440,000 cDNA sequences from a condor fibroblast cell line using the 454 technology. Their total length is over 43 Mb. 78% transcripts were homologous to chicken genes. After assembly and clustering, around 15,000 contigs were built that contain roughly 190,000 reads. These data provide information about the condor transcriptome.