A “light in the darkness”: First transcriptomic data from deep-sea spiny eels (Notacanthus, Notacanthiformes)

The genus Notacanthus comprises worldwide distributed bathypelagic deep-sea fish species. Despite several interesting ecological traits and their interesting phylogenetic position as relatives of eels, no transcriptomic, genomic, or proteomic resources are currently available. Here, we present a brain and eye transcriptome for two different notacanthid species: the shortfin spiny eel Notacanthus bonaparte (Risso, 1840) and N. arrontei (Bañón et al., 2024). Functional annotation of the transcripts is also provided. These novel datasets will be valuable for future studies on notacanthid fish and the deep-sea bathypelagic fish community.