Closely related, yet phenotypically different - Genome assemblies of two sister species of widow spiders: <i>Latrodectus hasselti</i> and <i>L. katipo</i>, Theridiidae

Widow spiders of the genus <i>Latrodectus</i> are important animals for biomedical, pest and conservation research. Here, we present the assembled genomes of two closely related <i>Latrodectus</i> species: the Australian <i>L. hasselti</i> and the New Zealand endemic <i>L. katipo</i>. The genome of <i>L. katipo</i> consists of 13 scaffolds likely corresponding to chromosomes (90% of the total length) and 1267 short scaffolds (10%). It has a total length of 1.5 Gbp and BUSCO of 94.9%. The genome of <i>L. hasselti</i> consists of 379 scaffolds and has a total length of 1.7 Gbp and a BUSCO score of 95.4%. The repeat content is very similar in both genomes with a total proportion of 37.2% for <i>L. katipo</i> and 39.9% for <i>L. hasselti</i>. Genome annotation predicted 12706 and 15111 genes for <i>L. katipo</i> and <i>L. hasselti</i> respectively. An ortholog analysis shows large overlap between orthogroups suggesting either duplication events in <i>L. hasselti</i> or loss of genes in <i>L. katipo</i>.