Chromosome-level genome assembly of the casuarina moth, Lymantria xylina Swinhoe (1903)

The casuarina moth, Lymantria xylina, is a serious pest threatening subtropical regions through severe defoliation and strong invasive potential. Despite its economic impact and high invasion risk, a high-quality reference genome remains lacking. To bridge this knowledge gap, we generated a chromosome-level genome assembly for L. xylina combining Illumina short-reads, Oxford Nanopore long-reads, and high-throughput chromatin conformation capture (Hi-C) scaffolding data. Following long-reads based assembly and Hi-C scaffolding, the final genome assembly totals 977.74 Mb, with 930.50 Mb (95.17%) of sequences anchored onto 31 pseudo-chromosomes, achieving a scaffold N50 of 34.15 Mb. The genome assembly, featuring fully assembled telomeres on all 31 pseudo-chromosomes, demonstrates 94.5% Benchmarking Universal Single-Copy Orthologs (BUSCO) completeness and high accuracy with consensus quality value of 31.72. Repetitive elements constitute 77.18% of the genome, and 18,484 protein-coding genes were predicted, with 95.21% functionally annotated. This high-quality genome assembly provides a critical foundation for elucidating interaction mechanisms with host plants and natural enemies (nucleopolyhedrovirus, Beauveria bassiana), for developing enhanced pest management and control strategies.