Missulena insignis

Missulena insignis, commonly known as the lesser red-headed mouse spider, is a species of spider belonging to the family Actinopodidae native to Australia. The species name is derived from the Latin insignis "mark".[2]

Missulena insignis
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Subphylum: Chelicerata
Class: Arachnida
Order: Araneae
Infraorder: Mygalomorphae
Family: Actinopodidae
Genus: Missulena
Species:
M. insignis
Binomial name
Missulena insignis
Synonyms[1]
  • Eriodon insigne O. Pickard-Cambridge, 1877
  • Actinopus formosus Rainbow, 1896
  • Eriodon semicoccineum Simon, 1896
  • Eriodon rubrocapitata Rainbow, 1903
  • Missulena formosa (Rainbow, 1896)

Taxonomy

The species was first described by Octavius Pickard-Cambridge in 1877, as Eriodon insigne. Separately, William Joseph Rainbow described a male collected from Menindie, New South Wales as Actinopus formosus in 1896,[3] formosus being Latin for "handsome/beautiful". H. Womersley in 1943 regarded Actinopus formosus as a synonym of Missulena occatoria.[4] Barbara York Main in 1985 treated Actinopus formosus as a synonym of Missulena insignis,[5] the position adopted by the World Spider Catalog.[1] She considered that Womersley had partly confused M. occatoria and M. insignis, with M. occatoria only occurring in eastern Australia.[5] According to Framenau et al., M. occatoria and M. insignis cannot be differentiated based on the original description.[6]

References
  1. "Taxon details Missulena insignis (O. Pickard-Cambridge, 1877)". World Spider Catalog. Natural History Museum Bern. Retrieved 2016-03-15.
  2. Brunet, Bert (1997). Spiderwatch: A Guide to Australian Spiders. Reed. p. 80. ISBN 0-7301-0486-9.
  3. Rainbow, William Joseph (1896). "Descriptions of some New Araneidae of New South Wales. No. 6". Proceedings of the Linnean Society of New South Wales. 21: 320–44 [328–30].
  4. Womersley, H. (1943). "A revision of the spiders of the genus Missulena Walckenaer 1805". Records of the South Australian Museum. 7: 249–269.
  5. Main, B.Y. (1985). "Mygalomorphae". In Walton, D.W. (ed.). Zoological Catalogue of Australia. 3. Canberra: Bureau of Flora and Fauna. pp. 1–48.
  6. Framenau, V.; Miglio, L.; Harms, D. & Harvey, M. (2014), "Four new Mouse Spider species (Araneae, Mygalomorphae, Actinopodidae, Missulena) from Western Australia", ZooKeys, 410: 121–148, doi:10.3897/zookeys.410.7156, PMC 4042711, PMID 24899853


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