United States

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

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