Web loss in Hawaiian Tetragnatha spiders

We sequenced the transcriptomes of six species of Hawaiian Tetragnatha spiders in order to examine the genetic basis of web loss. Three of these species (T. brevignatha, T. quasimodo, and T. waikamoi) belong to a lineage that has secondarily lost the ability to spin webs; the others are web-builders. These transcriptomes are derived from dissected abdomens and silk glands, not whole bodies.