Big Spider, Big Genome: Chromosome-level genome of a North American tarantula (Aphonopelma marxi) and comparative genomics across 300 million years of spider evolution

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  Image Credit: WikiCommons Big Spider, Big Genome: Chromosome-level genome of a North American tarantula (Aphonopelma marxi) and comparative genomics across 300 million years of spider evolution Abstract The comparison of chromosome-level genomes allows biologists to investigate new axes of organismal evolution. Spiders comprise a significant proportion of known arachnid diversity, with many complex morphologies and unique natural histories, yet comparative genomics in spiders has been limited due to the number of available genomes. We present a de novo chromosomal reference genome of a mature male tarantula, Aphonopelma marxi, and comparatively examine spider genome evolution across the Order Araneae. Using PacBio HiFi and Hi-C sequencing, the final 6.5 Gb assembly consists of 17 autosomes, 1 X chromosome, and 127 unplaced scaffolds, with an N50 of 370 Mb and Arachnida (odb10; 2934 genes) BUSCO of 96.7%. By comparing 20 additional spider genomes from 15 families, we find mygalomo...

A new Otacilia Thorell, 1897 species from Hubei Province, China (Araneae, Phrurolithidae)

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A new Otacilia Thorell, 1897 species from Hubei Province, China (Araneae, Phrurolithidae)

Otacilia Thorell, 1897, the largest genus of family Phrurolithidae, contains 143 species and is distributed in East Asia and Southeast Asia; amongst them, 120 species were reported in China (Anonymous 2024). The species and studies of Otacilia have accelerated considerably during past decade and reduced the complexity of Otacilia by assigning species to newly-established genera (Liu et al. 2020, Zamani and Marusik 2020, Kamura 2021, Mu and Zhang 2021, Liu et al. 2022, Mu and Zhang 2022, Mu et al. 2022, Mu and Zhang 2023), which greatly promoted the study of Otacilia. Recently, O. khezu Lin & Li, 2024, a eyeless species collected from a cave was described, showing enormous potential for species diversity (Lin et al. 2024). While examining specimens collected from Duheyuan Nature Reserve, one new Otacilia species has been discovered and is described here: Otacilia subshanxi sp. nov.

Guo M, Mu Y, Zhang F (2024) A new Otacilia Thorell, 1897 species from Hubei Province, China (Araneae, Phrurolithidae). Biodiversity Data Journal 12: e137014. https://doi.org/10.3897/BDJ.12.e137014