Genome assembly study reveals a chromosome-level reference genome for Draco maculatus, highlighting the genetic foundations of specialized gliding adaptations.
The Agamidae (agamids, also known as dragon lizards or dragons) is a species-rich squamate family adapted to all non-polar continents except the Americas. Flying dragons (Draco) belong to this family and are widespread across South and Southeast Asia. To date, no nuclear genome assemblies of flying dragons have been published, limiting our understanding of the genetic underpinnings of their unique adaptive gliding trait and population dynamics. We report a high-quality chromosome-level assembly of Draco maculatus (the spotted flying dragon) with a size of 1.73Gb, a scaffold N50 of 255.50 Mb, and 18,805 annotated protein-coding genes. The assembly (99.88% of assembled sequence) was anchored to 17 pseudochromosomes (6 macro–11 micro), consistent with the reported karyotype of Draco species in cytogenetic studies. We also provide transcriptomic data from the patagium, skin, and four internal tissues.
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韦浩腾 et al. (2026) studied this question.
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