BioSample

The European pond turtle (Emys orbicularis) is a long-living freshwater turtle in the family Emydidae, and is endemic to the Western Palearctic, namely southern and central Europe, West Asia and North Africa (from Wikipedia entry). This sample is from a female at a Nature Reserve in Italy, collected by Claudio Ciofi, to generate a high-quality reference for the Vertebrate Genomes Project (VGP). Sequencing and genome assembly were conducted at the University of Florence in Italy led by Ciofi and the Vertebrate Genomes Lab (VGL) at the Rockefeller University, led by Olivier Fedrigo and Erich D. Jarvis, with support from Ciofi and Jarvis.