Reference genome assembly of the mandarin rat snake (Euprepiophis mandarinus)

The mandarin rat snake (Euprepiophis mandarinus), a widely distributed and ecologically important species endemic to Asia, serves as an ideal candidate for establishing a reference genome for the genus Euprepiophis. This is due to its wide distribution, and its overlapping distribution with and morphological similarities to the endangered Euprepiophis perlaceus. Here we present the first high-quality, chromosome-level reference genome of E. mandarinus, assembled using PacBio HiFi long-read and Hi-C sequencing. The final assembly has a length of 1.65 Gb contained in 56 scaffolds, a scaffold N50 of 210 Mb, a benchmarking universal single-copy orthologs completeness of 98.2%, and 99.12% bases anchored onto 19 chromosomes. We identified 22,332 protein-coding genes, 3,440 noncoding RNAs, and approximately 7 million repeat elements accounting for 58.38% of the assembled genome. This reference genome provides a valuable resource for taxonomic, phylogenetic, comparative, and conservation studies of the genus Euprepiophis.