Genomic data from the saker falcon (Falco cherrug)

The saker falcon (Falco cherrug) is the national bird of Hungary, and has unique morphological, physiological and behavioural adaptations allowing them to be successful hunters. It often hunts by horizontal pursuit of rodents and birds, rather than the high-speed dives (stoop from a height) some other birds of prey such as the peregrine use. Here we present the data for the saker falcon genome that was obtained using an Illumina HiSeq 2000 platform that generated a 136.21 Gb sequence. Paired-end libraries with insert sizes of 170, 500 and 800 bp (short inserts) and 5, 10 and 20 kb (long inserts) were constructed. The initial genome size was estimated at 1.2 Gb, suggesting a genome coverage of 113.51x. SOAPdenovo was used for assembly and resulted in scaffold N50 and contig values of 4.15 Mb and 31.2 kb, respectively. Fosmid-based Sanger sequencing confirmed >97% coverage of euchromatic DNA. This data will help provide insights into the evolution of the saker’s predatory lifestyle.