Kochiana

Kochiana is a small genus of New World tarantulas in the family Theraphosidae, native to Brazil’s Atlantic forest and surrounding regions. The story of the genus starts in the early 1840s, when Carl Ludwig Koch described a tiny Brazilian theraphosid as Mygale brunnipes in his classic work Die Arachniden. For more than a century the species remained poorly known and was even treated as “indeterminable” (a nomen dubium) in later catalogs.

In 2008, Brazilian arachnologists Caroline Fukushima, Roberto Nagahama and Rogério Bertani rediscovered this dwarf tarantula in northeastern Brazil, studied the old type material, and realized it did not fit any known genus. They erected the new genus Kochiana to house it, creating the combination Kochiana brunnipes and firmly placing the group in the subfamily Theraphosinae. For many years Kochiana was considered monotypic, containing only this single “Brazilian dwarf pink leg” species.

Most recently, in 2024, Moeller, Galletti-Lima and Guadanucci described a second Brazilian species, Kochiana fukushimae, based on material from Minas Gerais. As recognized today by the World Spider Catalog, Kochiana is an accepted genus with two described species, both small, terrestrial tarantulas characterized by their dark bodies, distinctive golden abdominal patch, and contrasting pinkish leg segments.