Kogia breviceps (Pygmy sperm whale) genome, mKogBre1

Pygmy sperm whales are toothed whales named after the waxy substance, spermaceti, found in their heads. The spermaceti is an oil sac that helps the whales focus sound. Like squid, pygmy sperm whales can produce a dark, ink-like liquid that helps them escape from predators. Pygmy sperm whales are found in temperate and tropical seas worldwide. They look very similar to dwarf sperm whales (Kogia sima), making it very difficult to distinguish between the two species in the field. Little is known about both species because of limited information, and they are rare. The sample used to generate the genome assembly was from a juvenile female that was live-stranded in La Jolla, CA, but died after several weeks of attempted rehabilitation. The tissue sample was sent from Hubbs SeaWorld in San Diego to the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance in 2017 in order to establish a fibroblast cell line that was banked in the SDZWA Frozen Zoo. The sample was later used to generate a high-quality reference genome for the Vertebrate Genomes Project, coordinated by Phil Morin. Sequencing and genome assembly were conducted at the Vertebrate Genomes Lab at the Rockefeller University, led by Olivier Fedrigo and Erich D. Jarvis. Hi-C data were provided by DNAzoo (from the same animal; DNAzoo.org assembly ID KogBre_v1_BIUU_HiC). This is the haplotype 1 assembly using the HiFiasm - Hi-C approach. This assembly is under the limited use G10K embargo policy from the date of submission: https://genome10k.ucsc.edu/data-use-policies/