Four new Mouse Spider species (Araneae, Mygalomorphae, Actinopodidae, Missulena) from Western Australia

Abstract

Four new species of the Mouse Spider genus Missulena Walckenaer, 1805 (family Actinopodidae) are described from Western Australia based on morphological features of adult males. Missulena leniae sp. n.(from the Carnarvon and Yalgoo biogeographic regions), Missulena mainae sp. n. (Carnarvon), Missulena melissae sp. n. (Pilbara) and Missulena pinguipes sp. n. (Mallee) represent a broad spectrum of morphological diversity found in this genus and differ from other congeners by details of the male copulatory bulb, colour patterns, eye sizes, leg morphology and leg spination. Two of the species, M. pinguipes sp. n. and M. mainae sp. n., are characterised by swollen metatarsi of the fourth legs in males, a feature not previously recorded in the family. A key to males of all named Missulena species from Australia is presented and allows their identification based on external morphology.

A new species of Mouse Spider (Actinopodidae, Missulena) from the Goldfields region of Western Australia

“…Male Missulena bradleyi also have a light pattern on the dorsal side of the abdomen, but it is restricted to an anterior light blue patch and the species is also larger (male body length 8.0 mm vs 10.9 mm) (measurements from Faulder 1995a). Otherwise, somatic morphology most closely resembles three species with a brown carapace, M. melissae Miglio, Harms, Framenau & Harvey, 2014, M. faulderi Harms & Framenau, 2013and M. rutraspina Faulder, 1995 harewoodi sp. n. differs considerably in the colour pattern of the abdomen of both live and preserved specimens (brown in M. melissae, grey-brown in M. faulderi and blue-grey in M. rutraspina) and the much smoother carapace (Faulder 1995b;Harms and Framenau 2013;Miglio et al 2014).…”

“…The images were edited and formatted in Adobe Photoshop CC, release 2017. For measurement protocols and overall format of the description please see Griswold and Ledford (2001), Harms and Framenau (2013) and Miglio et al (2014). Abbreviations for morphological characters are as follows: (EL) embolar lamella, (DET) distal embolar tooth, (BEI) basal embolar intumescence, (PME) posterior median eyes, (PLE) posterior lateral eyes, (ALE) anterior lateral eyes, (AME) anterior median eyes, (MOQ) median ocular quadrangle, (OAL) ocular area length, (OAW) ocular area width.…”

“…The Australian fauna in this family currently comprises 16 species in the single genus Missulena Walckenaer, 1805 (Miglio et al 2014; World Spider Catalog 2017). However, species-level diversity in this genus is clearly much higher, with dozens of undescribed species identified in recent barcoding analyses (e.g.…”

“…Castalanelli et al 2014). The fauna of Western Australia, where 14 of the 16 described species occur (Miglio et al 2014), is particularly diverse. Recent barcoding projects focusing on the Pilbara region in the northwest of the state recovered 13 distinct genetic clades, only five representing described species (Castalanelli et al 2014).…”

“…The two most recent taxonomic studies Framenau 2013, Miglio et al 2014) on Missulena developed a protocol for the description of spe-cies after several decades of taxonomic neglect and added six new species to the Australian fauna. They also provided an updated key to the males of all Australian species (Harms and Framenau 2013;Miglio et al 2014).…”