The Illustrated Evo2: A visual, interactive walkthrough of Evo 2 and the StripedHyena2 architecture.

Jared Wilber, FARHAD RAMEZANGHORBANI, Tyler C. Shimko, John St. John, David W. Romero

Abstract: We present The Illustrated Evo 2, an interactive visual explainer for Evo 2, a biological foundation model trained on trillions of DNA base pairs spanning all domains of life. The explainer uses narrative visualization to make Evo 2’s data, StripedHyena 2 architecture, long-context modeling, and biological applications accessible to a broad technical audience. It walks readers through how genomic sequence can be modeled at single-nucleotide resolution, how Hyena operators enable efficient long-range sequence modeling, and how Evo 2 supports tasks such as variant-effect prediction, mechanistic interpretation, and genome-scale sequence generation. By combining explanatory text, visual abstractions, and interactive diagrams, the project aims to bridge large-scale genomic AI research, modern sequence-model architectures, and public understanding of biological foundation models.