The Asian giant hornet, Vespa mandarinia, has a native range that extends from northern India to East Asia. In 2019, the hornet was confirmed for the first time in North America, posing an invasive threat to honey bees and human health. In September 2019, local beekeepers, tracked down a nest in a park in Nanaimo on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada and exterminated it. The specimen we used for genome sequencing was obtained from that nest, the first one found in North America. DNA was extracted from the thorax for PacBio HiFi sequencing on two cells and data were assembled using IPA to yield a contig assembly of 248 Mb with a 3.14 Mb N50. The assembly was generated by the Agricultural Research Service's Ag100Pest Initiative in collaboration with Pacific Biosciences. This high-quality genome assembly is being released prior to publication in scientific journals as a public service to the research community. The Primary and Haplotig assemblies, along with the HiFi reads have been archived at NCBI. Relevant accessions include: SRA: SRR12366675 - PacBio HiFi reads for both cells BioProject: PRJNA649644, BioSample: SAMN15675875, GenBank: JACHAV000000000 - Primary contig assembly and mitochondrial genome BioProject: PRJNA649643, BioSample: SAMN15675875, GenBank: JACHAW000000000 - Alternate (Haplotigs) contig assembly

A high-quality reference genome is an essential tool for applied and basic research on arthropods. Long-read sequencing technologies may be used to generate more complete and contiguous genome assemblies than alternate technologies, however, long-read methods have historically had greater input DNA requirements and higher costs than next generation sequencing, which are barriers to their use on many samples. Here, we present a 2.3 Gb de novo genome assembly of a field-collected adult female Spotted Lanternfly (Lycorma delicatula) using a single PacBio SMRT Cell. The Spotted Lanternfly is an invasive species recently discovered in the northeastern United States, threatening to damage economically important crop plants in the region. The DNA from one individual female specimen collected in Reading, Berks County, Pennsylvania was used to make one standard, size-selected library with an average DNA fragment size of ~20 kb. The library was run on one Sequel II SMRT Cell 8M, generating a total of 132 Gb of long-read sequences, of which 82 Gb were from unique library molecules, representing approximately 38x coverage of the genome. The assembly had high contiguity (contig N50 length = 1.5 Mb), completeness, and sequence level accuracy as estimated by conserved gene set analysis (96.8% of conserved genes both complete and without frame shift errors). Further, it was possible to segregate more than half of the diploid genome into the two separate haplotypes. The assembly also recovered two microbial symbiont genomes known to be associated with L. delicatula, each microbial genome being assembled into a single contig. We demonstrate that field-collected arthropods can be used for the rapid generation of high-quality genome assemblies, an attractive approach for projects on emerging invasive species, disease vectors, or conservation efforts of endangered species. Supporting files for the manuscript "A High-Quality Genome Assembly from a Single, Field-collected Spotted Lanternfly (Lycorma delicatula) using the PacBio Sequel II System", include several intermediate versions of the assembly (raw output from Falcon, raw output from Falcon unzip, etc.) as well as the final assembly primary contigs and haplotigs (for the regions of the genome that were phased).