Central America

Aphonopelma  is a genus of New World tarantulas formally established in 1901 by British arachnologist Reginald Pocock, separating these sturdy, ground-dwelling spiders from earlier “catch-all” groups. Native to the southern United States, Mexico, and Central America, Aphonopelma  species have become iconic desert and grassland tarantulas. Throughout the 1900s the group went through several reclassifications and name changes, but in 1991 an international ruling officially fixe

This genus comprises arboreal species that can be found throughout Mexico, Costa Rica, Panama, Trinidad and Tobago, Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname, French Guiana, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, and Brazil. All of the Avicularia species have pink foot pads. Many species in this genus have been transferred to other genera. Currently, there are 12 accepted Avicularia species. Historically, over 50 species were classified as Avicularia. Fukushima 2017 is a large-scale taxonomy su

Citharacanthus  is a genus of New World tarantulas in the family Theraphosidae, found in Central America and the Caribbean, especially Cuba, Mexico, Belize, Guatemala and Hispaniola. The genus was established in the early 1900s by British arachnologist R. I. Pocock, who reassigned several large ground-dwelling species from older catch-all genera into Citharacanthus as tarantula taxonomy became more refined. One of these, Citharacanthus longipes , originally described by F. O.

The genus Davus was established by O. Pickard-Cambridge in 1892 to describe a group of small, boldly patterned New World tarantulas now popularly known as tiger rumps . The type species, Davus fasciatus, comes from Costa Rica and Panama and helped define the classic look of the group: a compact terrestrial spider with a copper to orange carapace and a striking banded pattern on the abdomen. For much of the 20th century, Davus species bounced around the literature and were at

Species of this genus are native to Central America and northern South America. All Psalmopoeus is a New World genus of arboreal tarantulas in the family Theraphosidae. These spiders are found from Trinidad & Tobago through Central America into northern South America, including countries such as Colombia, Ecuador, Venezuela, Brazil, Belize, Panama, Costa Rica, Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras. All known species are tree-dwelling, and Psalmopoeus victori  was the first arboreal

Sericopelma  is a Central American tarantula genus first introduced to science in 1875, when Austrian arachnologist Anton Ausserer described Sericopelma rubronitens  (then placed in the broad “catch-all” group Eurypelma ). A few years later, in 1892, Eugène Simon elevated Sericopelma  to full genus status, but for decades it remained poorly understood and based almost entirely on male specimens. Throughout the 20th century, Sericopelma  was repeatedly confused with other New

Tliltocatl  is a relatively new tarantula genus, formally described by Mendoza & Francke during a major revision of the Mexican Brachypelma  group published in 2019 and implemented in 2020. Their work showed that the traditional genus Brachypelma  actually contained two distinct evolutionary lineages based on molecular and morphological data. To keep the groups natural (monophyletic), the “red-rumped” species were separated into the new genus Tliltocatl , while the classic “r

Theraphosinae is the largest subfamily of New World tarantulas, containing roughly half of all known tarantula species and dozens of genera spread across North, Central and South America. These spiders are primarily ground-dwelling and are best known for their urticating hairs, a defensive feature that likely helped drive their evolutionary success. The group’s taxonomic story starts in the early 1800s, when large South American species were described under the genus Therapho