Genomic sequences of several pinned museum beetles

Natural history collections are invaluable resources that not only serve as repositories for material from previous studies but also as sources of data for novel biological discoveries. While traditionally viewed as a resource for taxonomic and systematic research, they are now being utilized across diverse biological disciplines. Increasingly, museum specimens, especially those in herbaria and vertebrate collections, are also being used in molecular studies. In this study, 13 dry mounted beetles from natural history collections, ranging in age from 84 years to 4 years old, were genomically sequenced in order to assess the effectiveness of high-throughput sequencing for ancient specimens and determine the beetle's phylogenetic placement.