Red-headed mouse spider
The red-headed mouse spider is a chunky Australian spider that lives in a deep burrow. The males are the eye-catching ones: a bright red head and jaws and a shiny blue-black body. The females are bigger and mostly dark brown or black.
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Fun facts
Its burrow can be up to 55 centimetres deep and has two trapdoors.
Baby mouse spiders fly away on the wind on silk threads, which is unusual for this kind of chunky spider.
That is why it lives in more of Australia than any other mouse spider.
Most asked questions about Red-headed mouse spider
?How big is the red-headed mouse spider?
Females are about 3.5 centimetres long and males about 1.5 centimetres.
?Where does the red-headed mouse spider live?
In burrows all over mainland Australia, from forests to deserts.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Missulena occatoria
- Named by
- Walckenaer, 1805
- Group
- Spiders
- Family
- Actinopodidae
- Classification
- Arachnida > Araneae > Actinopodidae
- Lives on
- Australia and Oceania
Where the facts come from
- Missulena occatoria (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
- Picture by Peripitus. CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons. The round sticker of this bug is cut from the same picture.
If we got something wrong, sorry, we are bug fans, not a science journal. Tell us at [email protected] and we will fix it.
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