Homoemma

Homoeomma is a genus of small South American tarantulas first described by Austrian arachnologist Anton Ausserer in 1871. The name comes from Greek and roughly means “similar eye,” referring to the similar size of the spider’s median eyes. Today the genus is placed in the family Theraphosidae and is best known in the hobby for compact, burrowing species from Chile and Brazil.

Ausserer originally created Homoeomma for a Brazilian tarantula then known as Mygale versicolor. Later work showed that name was preoccupied, so in 1881 O. Pickard-Cambridge described Homoeomma stradlingi from Bahia, Brazil and this species became the formal type for the genus. Early authors focused on eye arrangement and body proportions, but over time the diagnosis was refined to include details of the male palpal bulb and tibial apophyses, and the distinctive shape of the female spermathecae.

Through the 20th century, several supposedly separate genera – Calopelma, Butantania and Cyclothoracoides, among others – were shown to belong within Homoeomma, making it the senior name for this lineage. A major revision in 1972 by Gerschman de Pikelin & Schiapelli, followed by a wider cladistic study of Theraphosinae in the 1990s, clarified which South American “dwarf” species truly belong here and which should be moved to other genera.

Modern work has shifted the picture again. Field surveys and fresh material from the Andes and southern cone have expanded the genus into Chile, Argentina and Uruguay, with several charismatic dwarf species such as H. chilense and H. orellanai described since 2018. At the same time, a 2023 revision of the Peruvian “Homoeomma peruvianum” complex split those high-montane spiders into a separate genus, showing that Homoeomma is just one branch of a diverse group of small Andean and Atlantic Forest tarantulas.

Today, Homoeomma includes a growing set of species scattered across Brazil, Chile, Argentina, Uruguay and nearby regions. They are typically dwarf to small, terrestrial tarantulas that live in shallow burrows under stones or logs, often with dark bodies and contrasting red or orange abdominal setae—features that have made species like the Chilean “dwarf flame” highly sought after in the hobby.

Montenegro and Aguilera 2024