Mouse Spider

Female mouse spider (Photo by Robert Whyte)

Mouse Spiders

Mouse spiders (Missulena sp.), which belong to the trapdoor family of spiders. They make vertical burrows lined with silk, and with a door at the entrance. Mouse spiders are aggressive, and will adopt an attacking posture when threatened, rearing up on their hind legs.

About

Mouse spiders, which belong to the trapdoor family of spiders. They make vertical burrows lined with silk, and with a door at the entrance.
Mouse spiders are aggressive, and will adopt an attacking posture when threatened, rearing up on their hind legs.  They are thickset, with large fangs capable of inflicting a painful and potentially serious bite.  Mouse spiders are occasionally mistaken for funnel web spiders, and their venoms appear to possess some similarities to those of funnel webs.

Male mouse spider (Missulena occcatoria). Only the males of this species display the red colouration on the cephalothorax.
(Photo by Peripitus)

Distribution

Found throughout mainland Australia.

Venom

The female M. occatoria produces copious amounts of highly toxic venom, which was shown to be potentially as dangerous as that of the Sydney funnel web spider on preliminary toxicity testing performed at the former Commonwealth Serum Laboratories.

Recent work on venom from the male M. bradleyi suggests that it affects presynaptic transmitter release in a manner similar to that of the Blue Mountains funnel web spider (H. versuta) venom, and that funnel web spider antivenom attenuates this effect. 
(Nicholson, GM, Birinyi-Strachan, LC et al, Novel d-atractotoxins: spider toxins that target the voltage-gated sodium channels. In: International Society on Toxinology 13th World Congress on Animal Plant and Microbial Toxins; Paris:  September; 2000.)