A draft genome assembly of spotted hyena, Crocuta crocuta

Here, we present a high-quality genome assembly of C. crocuta that was generated using a hybrid assembly strategy with Illumina multi-size libraries. A genome of about 2.3 Gb was generated with a scaffold N50 length of 7.2 Mb. More than 35.28% genome region was identified as repetitive elements, and 22,747 protein-coding genes were identified in the genome, with 99.67% of these annotated by databases. This high-quality genome will provide an opportunity to gain insight into the evolution of social behavior and social cognition in mammals, as well as for population genetics and metagenomics studies.