The native Australian rodent Pseudomys fumeus, named smoky mouse for its colour, was already fighting off extinction when the 2019–20 bushfire season hit. The Black Summer bushfires, which torched more than 24 million hectares, may have killed an estimated 1 billion animals and put more than 100 threatened species at risk. The fires also destroyed more than 90% of the smoky mouse’s habitat, with nine mice even dying at a captive breeding facility near Canberra from bushfire smoke inhalation.

But all is not lost – a newly sequenced reference genome will now help the ongoing conservation efforts of this native Australian species.