High quality genomes corroborate 29 chromosomes of the haploid Hyles (Lepidoptera: Sphingidae) karyotype

"FISH analysis of the karyotype revealed n = 29 chromosomes in Hyles euphorbiae. The measured genome sizes of H. euphorbiae and H. vespertilio are estimated to have average 1C DNA values of 472 and 562 Mb respectively. The H. euphorbiae genome was PacBio sequenced and amended by Hi-C Illumina data yielding a 504Mb assembly with a scaffold N50 of 18.2 Mb and 99.9% of the data being represented by the 29 largest scaffolds, corroborating the haploid karyotype. Chromosome length estimations based on karyotype image data provide an additional quality metric of the assembled chromosome sizes. Hi-C data was also used for chromosome-level scaffolding of the published H. vespertilio genome, leading to a second assembly (651 Mb) with scaffold N50 of 22 Mb, 98% in the 29 largest scaffolds representing the chromosomes. The larger H. vespertilio genome size was accompanied by a proportional increase of repeats from 45% in H. euphorbiae to nearly 55% in H. vespertilio.
In both Hyles species, the three wing pattern genes, optix, wingless/wint-1 and cortex, were found on chromosomes 23, 4 and 17, respectively. Peaks of divergence surrounding wingless/wnt-1 and cortex provide candidate genomic areas in which wing patterns are determined in this genus.