Supporting data for: The de novo genome of the Black-necked Snakefly (Venustoraphidia nigricollis Albarda, 1891): A resource to study the evolution of living fossils

Snakeflies (Raphidioptera) are the smallest order of holometabolous
insects that have kept their distinct and name-giving appearance since the
Mesozoic, probably since the Jurassic, and possibly even since their
emergence in the Carboniferous, more than 300 million years ago. Despite
their interesting nature and numerous publications on their morphology,
taxonomy, systematics, and biogeography, snakeflies have never received
much attention from the general public, and only a few studies were
devoted to their molecular biology. Due to this lack of molecular data, it
is therefore unknown, if the conserved morphological nature of these
living fossils translates to conserved genomic structures. Here, we
present the first genome of the species and of the entire order of
Raphidioptera. The final genome assembly has a total length of 669 Mbp and
reached a high continuity with an N50 of 5.07 Mbp. Further quality
controls also indicate a high completeness and no meaningful
contamination. The newly generated data was used in a large-scaled
phylogenetic analysis of snakeflies using shared orthologous sequences.
Quartet score and gene-concordance analyses revealed high amounts of
conflicting signals within this group that might speak for substantial
incomplete lineage sorting and introgression after their presumed
re-radiation after the asteroid impact 66 million years ago. Overall, this
reference genome will be a door-opening dataset for many future research
applications, and we demonstrated its utility in a phylogenetic analysis
that provides new insights into the evolution of this group of living
fossils.