Hundreds of SNPs for the endangered pygmy hippopotamus (Choeropsis liberiensis)

The pygmy hippo is an Endangered mammal endemic to West Africa, of which only 2,000-3,000 are left in the wild. Until now genetic resources to conduct monitoring of wild populations and to facilitate captive breeding have been lacking. In this study we used restriction-site associated DNA sequencing of five pygmy hippo samples to generate 1,619 high confidence candidate single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) suitable for population genetic analysis. A subset of 10 of SNPs generated were validated via resequencing with 100 % success rate and through the use of KASPar DNA probes (Kbiosciences) with 90 % success rate. To facilitate future research we present the list of 1,619 SNPs ranked according to mean genotype confidence and mean coverage.