Ischnocolinae is the tarantula subfamily that taxonomists have never been able to define cleanly. It was built around one trait, divided scopulae (the hair pads) under the feet. That trait turned out to be an ancestral feature shared by many tarantulas, so it could not hold the group together, and Raven (1985) already called the subfamily paraphyletic.1 Catalogue lists still carry the name: Sherwood and colleagues (2025) listed 17 genera in it before adding two new Caribbean ones, seven of them in the Old World (among them Chaetopelma, Heterothele, Ischnocolus and Nesiergus) and ten in the Americas.2 Most of the photographs show animals in the wild. They cover the Old World members Ischnocolus, Luphocemus, Heterothele and Nesiergus, and the Caribbean and South American Holothele and Caribothele.
Later studies agree that the group is not natural. In a morphological analysis, Guadanucci (2014) kept the name for a core group (Ischnocolus, Acanthopelma, Trichopelma, Reichlingia and some Holothele) and split a second Neotropical group off as Schismatothelinae.1 The transcriptome study of Foley and colleagues (2019) found their sampled “ischnocolines” on separate branches of the family tree.4 In a 2026 study of genomic data, Korba and Opatova placed Heterothele beside the Indian Thrigmopoeus, and Ischnocolus with its sister genus Luphocemus next to an African clade (Harpactirinae and Stromatopelminae), with weaker support for that link, and not with the American Trichopelma.5 Most members are small spiders, often called dwarf tarantulas, and together they have the widest distribution of any theraphosid group.4 They occur in the Mediterranean region of Europe and Asia, in Africa and India, and in the Neotropics.11
Ischnocolus, the Mediterranean to Iran
Ischnocolus includes some of the smallest tarantulas.6 I. valentinus is recorded from Spain, Sicily, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya and Turkey.7 I. jickelii ranges from Ethiopia and Somalia across Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Oman and the United Arab Emirates to Iran, and occurs in several colour forms, including individuals with iridescent blue setae.6,7 I. vanandelae was described in 2020 from Oman and Iran.6 Korba and Opatova note that the genus spreads over more than 6,000 km, from North Africa to eastern Oman and Iran, the widest distribution known among tarantulas.5 There is a separate page on Ischnocolus jickelii, and another on Ischnocolus valentinus, the species of Spain and Morocco.
The three stills below come from our film from Oman, shot in the field. The animal is an Ischnocolus that we have not taken to species.
Names that have changed
Several animals in the gallery are labelled with names that have since moved.
- Holothele culebrae, H. denticulata, H. shoemakeri and H. sulfurensis are now Caribothele, a genus described in 2025 for Caribbean species (Puerto Rico, Cuba, St Thomas, Guadeloupe) that were misplaced in Holothele.2
- Ischnocolus elongatus is now Luphocemus elongatus. Korba and Opatova (2026) revalidated Luphocemus Denis, 1960, a Moroccan and Algerian genus, and the World Spider Catalog treats I. hancocki as a synonym of L. elongatus.5,9
- Heterothele villosella is valid again. A 2026 revision restored it from its status as a doubtful name.10
Schismatothelinae, the Neotropical group split from Ischnocolinae in 2014, is treated separately in the literature and its own monophyly is still open.1,4
Additional links & references
- Guadanucci, J. P. L. (2014). Theraphosidae phylogeny: relationships of the ‘Ischnocolinae’ genera (Araneae, Mygalomorphae). Zoologica Scripta 43: 508-518. doi:10.1111/zsc.12065
- Sherwood, D., Gabriel, R., Peñaherrera-R., P., Rollard, C., Leguin, E.-A. & Privet, K. (2025). Hidden treasures of the Caribbean: two new genera and one new species of Lesser Antillean ischnocoline spiders (Araneae: Theraphosidae). Natura Somogyiensis 46: 99-116. doi:10.24394/NatSom.2025.46.99
- Foley, S. et al. (2019). Tarantula phylogenomics: a robust phylogeny of deep theraphosid clades inferred from transcriptome data sheds light on the prickly issue of urticating setae evolution. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 140: 106573. doi:10.1016/j.ympev.2019.106573
- Korba, J. & Opatova, V. (2026). Out of North Africa: evolution and biogeography of Afro-Arabian dwarf tarantulas (Theraphosidae, Ischnocolinae). Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 218: 108559. doi:10.1016/j.ympev.2026.108559
- Montemor, V. M., West, R. C., Zamani, A., Moradmand, M., von Wirth, V., Wendt, I., Huber, S. & Guadanucci, J. P. L. (2020). Taxonomy of the genus Ischnocolus in the Middle East, with description of a new species from Oman and Iran (Araneae: Theraphosidae). Zoology in the Middle East 66(1): 76-90. doi:10.1080/09397140.2019.1675994
- World Spider Catalog (2026). Species records for Ischnocolus valentinus and I. jickelii. Natural History Museum Bern. I. valentinus, I. jickelii. Accessed 1 October 2026.
- World Spider Catalog (2026). Luphocemus elongatus (Simon, 1873), with Ischnocolus hancocki Smith, 1990 listed as a synonym. Accessed 1 October 2026.
- Gallon, R. C. & Sherwood, D. (2026). Taxonomic notes on the tarantula genus Heterothele Karsch, 1879 (Araneae: Theraphosidae) with a new synonymy, resurrection of H. longipalpis Karsch, 1879, two nomina dubia, and description of a new species from Tanzania. Arachnology 20(4): 623-639. doi:10.13156/arac.2026.20.4.19
- Guadanucci, J. P. L. & Gallon, R. C. (2008). A revision of the spider genera Chaetopelma Ausserer 1871 and Nesiergus Simon 1903 (Araneae, Theraphosidae, Ischnocolinae). Zootaxa 1753: 34-48.
- Overview of Ischnocolinae at Tarantupedia: tarantupedia.com/ischnocolinae
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