Dolichothele

Dolichothele is a small genus of brightly coloured dwarf tarantulas from central and eastern Brazil and neighbouring Bolivia, currently placed in the family Theraphosidae. It was erected in 1923 by Brazilian arachnologist Cândido Firmino de Mello-Leitão for Dolichothele exilis, based on a female from the caatinga around Campina Grande, Paraíba, and was originally assigned to the trapdoor-spider family Barychelidae. In 1971, a re-examination of the type specimen showed it actually belongs among the tarantulas, and the genus was transferred into Theraphosidae (then treated in the subfamily Ischnocolinae).

The group then went through a long period of taxonomic turbulence. Raven’s influential 1985 revision of mygalomorph spiders treated Dolichothele as part of the Andean genus Hapalotremus, effectively sinking Dolichothele into synonymy. Over the following decades, many of the small Brazilian species now familiar to hobbyists were described in, or moved to, related genera such as Oligoxystre, Pseudoligoxystre, Goniodontium and Hapalotremus.

In 2015, Lucas & Indicatti revisited the type material and revalidated Dolichothele as a distinct genus, showing that it is actually the senior name for Goniodontium, Oligoxystre and Pseudoligoxystre. This work created a series of new combinations and brought several well-known dwarf species—most famously Dolichothele diamantinensis, the “Brazilian Blue Dwarf Beauty”—under the Dolichothele name. Subsequent studies, especially the 2017 ZooKeys paper describing D. camargorum and D. mottai, further refined the diagnosis and mapped the genus across cerrado and caatinga habitats in Brazil and Bolivia.

Today, the World Spider Catalog recognises around ten Dolichothele species, nearly all endemic to Brazil with one extending into Bolivia. These compact, ground-dwelling tarantulas have become popular in the hobby thanks to their intense metallic blues, greens and reds, combined with intricate webbing behaviour—and a taxonomic history that’s every bit as colourful as the spiders themselves.