Missulena bradleyi
Missulena bradleyi, also known as the eastern mouse spider, is a species of spider belonging to the family Actinopodidae. The spider is endemic to the eastern coast of Australia. History William Joseph Rainbow described the eastern mouse spider in 1914 from a specimen collected in North Sydney by Henry Houghton Burton Bradley (1845–1918), president of the board of trustees of the Australian Museum at the time. Describing the "beautiful and strikingly marked" specimen as a "decided novelty", Rainbow named it in honour of its collector, whom he stated was the first collector of Australian spiders. Description Eastern mouse spiders are often mistaken for Australian funnel-web spiders. The females are large and very strong, with powerful chelicerae. Their fangs often cross over slightly, while those of Australian funnel-web spiders remain parallel, and the latter often have a drop of venom on their fang tips and have longer spinnerets. Males have a trapezium-shaped lighter patch that can be coloured from white and pale blue to mauve while females have abdomens that are coloured brown to almost black. Both sexes have a carapace that is a shiny black colour. Behaviour The male, which has an all-black carapace and a pale bluish area on