Abstract
A new species of Mouse Spider (family Actinopodidae Simon, 1892), Missulena harewoodi, is described from near the City of Kalgoorlie-Boulder in the Goldfields region of Western Australia. It differs from all other Missulena species by the unusual light grey colouration of the abdomen in combination with small body size and shiny carapace. A phylogenetic analysis of a fragment (658 bp) of the COI barcoding gene places M. harewoodi sp. n. in a clade with four Missulena species from the Pilbara region of Western Australia, more than 900 km away. Missulena harewoodi sp. n. is one of the many species in this genus that are currently only known from a single, or a very limited number of specimen, highlighting the paucity of fauna collections in many arid regions of Australia and the difficulties in sampling these cryptic spiders.
Highlights
A new species of Mouse Spider, Missulena harewoodi, is described from near the City of Kalgoorlie-Boulder in the Goldfields region of Western Australia. It differs from all other Missulena species by the unusual light grey colouration of the abdomen in combination with small body size and shiny carapace
The spider family Actinopodidae Simon, 1892 has a Gondwanan distribution with species found in Australia and South America (World Spider Catalog 2017)
Recent collections as part of environmental assessment studies in the semi-arid Goldfields region of Western Australia recovered a small male of Missulena with the feature of light grey abdomen both as live (VWF pers. obs.) and preserved (Fig. 1A) specimen, another facet of the striking colour variations present within this genus
Summary
The spider family Actinopodidae Simon, 1892 has a Gondwanan distribution with species found in Australia and South America (World Spider Catalog 2017). A new species of Mouse Spider (family Actinopodidae Simon, 1892), Missulena harewoodi, is described from near the City of Kalgoorlie-Boulder in the Goldfields region of Western Australia.
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