The American pika (Ochotona princeps), a diurnal species of pika, found in the mountains of western North America. They are relatives of rabbits and hares. Pikas are vocal, using both calls and songs to warn when predators are nearby and during the breeding season (modified from Wikipedia entry). This sample is from a male in Grand Mesa, Colorado, USA, collected and procured by John R. Demboski, Andrea Marie Carrillo, and Andrew Doll, and curated at the Denver Zoology Tissue Mammal collection. The sample was used to generate a high-quality reference genome for the Vertebrate Genomes Project (VGP). Sequencing and genome assembly were conducted at the Vertebrate Genomes Lab (VGL) at the Rockefeller University, led by Olivier Fedrigo and Erich D. Jarvis.
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