High-Quality Genome Assembly of the Endemic, Threatened White-Bellied Sholakili Sholicola albiventris (Muscicapidae: Blanford, 1868) From the Shola Sky Islands, India

The White-bellied Sholakili (_Sholicola albiventris_) is an endemic, elevational restricted species occurring in the Shola Sky Islands of the Western Ghats of India. This unique understory bird, with a complex vocal repertoire, exhibits impacts of gene flow due to anthropogenic habitat fragmentation. Here, we present the first genome assembly for _Sholicola albiventris_, which was assembled using a combination of Nanopore and Illumina sequences. The final assembly is 1.083 Gbp, consisting of 975 scaffolds with an N50 of 68.64Mbp and L50 of 6. Our genome assembly’s completeness is supported by a high number of BUSCOs (99.9%) and a total of 4887 ultraconserved element (UCE) loci retrieved. We also report the complete mitochondrial genome comprising 13 protein-coding genes, 22 tRNAs, and 2 rRNAs. We identified 11.82% of the nuclear genome as repetitive and 36,000 putative genes, with 12017 genes functionally annotated. Our assembly showed a great synteny between _Taeniopygia guttata_ and _Gallus gallus_ chromosome level assemblies. This reference will be pivotal for investigating landscape connectivity, sub-population genetics, local adaptation, and conservation genetics of this high-elevation, range-restricted endemic bird species.