An updated genome annotation file for the Bicyclus anynana genome GCF_947172395.1_ilBicAnyn1.1

The reference genome and annotation for GCF_947172395.1_ilBicAnyn1.1 was downloaded from NCBI RefSeq in August 2023, and updated by incorporating the results of an RNA sequencing investigation into full-length transcripts expressed during metamorphosis, analysing five timepoints during progression from a late larval stage through to the final mature pupal stage. To identify and quantify novel transcript splicing compared to the reference genome, the sample-level alignment bam files were analysed using espresso (version 1.4), increasing the –read_num_cutoff setting to 4 to require a minimum of 4 perfect reads to call de novo detected candidate splice junctions. This procedure in espresso produced an updated unified annotation based on the transcripts detected in all samples. This was subsequently merged with the existing annotation using stringtie (version 2.1.7), generating new unique identifiers beginning with a prefix “BIGESP”.