Mediterranean

The type species, Chaetopelma olivaceum , was originally described by C. L. Koch in the 1840s. Later, in 1871, Austrian arachnologist Anton Ausserer recognized a distinct group of similar spiders and erected the genus Chaetopelma  for them. These spiders are burrowing, ground-dwelling tarantulas from the eastern Mediterranean and Middle East, with records from countries such as Turkey, Syria, Cyprus, Greece (including Crete), Egypt, Sudan, Cameroon and more recently Iran and