The annotations of miRNAs from 152 insect species are catched in directory The_datasets_of_insect_miRNAs. Inside, each file contain the annotation of one species, the name of the file is the abbreviation of the species name(see the abbreviation column in Table S1). Annotations for every species are saved as tab or csv formate but without suffix, but one can easily tackle it with replace('\t',',') function in Python. The annotation file consist 10 columns. Column 1: From genome or trace data Column 2: MiRNA gene name Column 3: MiRNA family name Column 4: 5'- mature or star Column 5: 3'- mature or star Column 6: The local stem-loop sequence in miRNA precursor (Pre-miRNA¡À30bp) Column 7: The scaffold on genome Column 8: The direction on scaffold (on sense or antisense side) Column 9: The start site of the precursor on scaffold Column 10: The end site of the precursor on scaffold