First 1,000 reference genomes

This graphic was originally published on the Sanger Institute website on 14 Sep 2023.

This infographic represents the first 1,000 species to have their reference genomes sequenced and assembled by the Tree of Life programme at the Wellcome Sanger Institute.

Each block is a species, arranged phylogenetically. The colours represent kingdoms: Animalia (blue-purple), Viridiplantae (green), Fungi (yellow-brown) and Protista (red-pink). The shades within each colour represent phyla. The icons represent orders – e.g. the butterfly is Lepidoptera (moths and butterflies).

Grid representing the first 1,000 species with genomes sequenced by the Tree of Life programme: you can see almost half are Lepidoptera and around three quarters are arthropods, less than 10% are plants, with fungi and protists numbering even less