A team led by scientists from Monash University has completed a major milestone toward the rescue of the critically endangered helmeted honeyeater, an emblem of the Australian State of Victoria. The scientists have deciphered the bird's genome and created additional genetic information that opens an additional way to potentially increase the genetic health of these birds. These new tools will allow researchers to be able to monitor the health and impact of breeding the helmeted honeyeater with another subspecies. The helmeted honeyeater also joins a very small set of birds that have both a chromosome-length genome and a genetic map. This research has been published today in the open science journal GigaScience.