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

By

Framenau, Volker Wilhelm
Harms, Danilo

Type

Article

Date of Publication

2017-12-22

Original Publication

Evolutionary systematics

Volume

1

Series / Issue

Issue: 1

Pages

39--46

Subjects

barcodingv , COI , Mygalomorphae , systematics , taxonomy

Contributed by

Pensoft Publishers

Language

English

Published by

Hamburg Centrum für Naturkunde (CeNak) 2017-

Identifiers

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3897/evolsyst.1.14665

 

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.