Genome Assembly of an Endemic Butterfly (minois Aurata) Shed Light on the Genetic Mechanisms Underlying Ecological Adaptation to Arid Valley Habitat

The Hengduan Mountains, one of the global biodiversity hotspots with exceptional species richness and high endemism, contains numerous arid valleys that create a distinctive geographical and ecological landscape. However, the adaptive evolutionary mechanisms of organism in the arid valley remain poorly understood. Minois aurata, an endemic butterfly species found exclusively in the arid valley of the upper Minjiang River, represents an attractive model system for studying adaptive evolutionary mechanisms to arid valley environments. Here, we present the first chromosome-level genome assembly for Minois aurata, with a total size of approximately 609.17 Mb, and a scaffold N50 size of 23.88 Mb. These scaffolds were further clustered and anchored onto 29 chromosomes based on Hi-C data. A total of 16,163 protein-coding genes were predicted, of which 91.83