Neoceratodus forsteri (Australian lungfish)

Abstract

In the Devonian era, lobe-fined fishes conquered land, giving rise to all land vertebrates. With ~43 Gb, the Australian lungfish, Neoceratodus forsteri, has the largest sequenced chromosome-quality animal genome. Its size is continuing to grow due to huge intergenic regions and introns with ~90% still active repeat content whose components resemble tetrapods more than ray-finned fish. Synteny to other vertebrate macrochromosomes is maintained just as its conserved ancient homology of all microchromosomes to the ancestral vertebrate karyotype.