Draft genomes of two Lethrus species

Abstract The superfamily Scarabaeoidae is a species-rich and diverse group within the order Coleoptera. The members of this taxon are of interest due to the diversity of their feeding and mating behaviour, and their ecological importance. Despite the size of the superfamily, only a few genomes have been published, leaving a large gap in our understanding of the evolution of these beetles. To reduce this gap, we generated third-generation sequencing data to describe the first genome assembly of Lethrus scoparius and to improve the assembly of Lethrus apterus . The genome of L. scoparius consists of 2,873 contigs with an N50 value of 301,243 bp. BUSCO analysis revealed 98.1% complete ortholog hits in the Endopterygota ortholog database. For the L. apterus genome, we were able to assemble 886 scaffolds with an N50 value of 1,378,308 bp and a complete BUSCO hit of 96.8%. We assigned functions to 15,252 genes in L. scoparius and 15,520 in L. apterus . These genomes may contribute to understanding the evolution of the superfamily.