Tarantulas are found in a variety of different habitat usch as arid deserts, tropical rainforests, mountainous and temperate forests and also in extreme alpine habitat – recently a new species was found at 4,689 m above sea level which is the altitude record for a theraphosid species.

They prefer warm climates and in USA (one genus Aphonopelma) they are found from the Southwest and east to the Mississippi river, south throughout Mexico and Central America and South America to southern Chile/Argentina. The New World and especially South America is home to the largest number of genus and species of theraphosids.

Tarantulas are also found throughout Africa (except the extreme sand desert of Sahara) with smaller Ischnocolinae in the northern parts of the continent and for example Hysterocrates and Phoneyusa in the tropical central parts of Africa while the genus Pterinochilus and Ceratogyrus inhabit the drier regions.

In Asia tarantulas are found in Turkey, India and Sri Lanka (for example Poecilotheria), South East Asia (e.g. Haplopelma), east to Hong Kong and parts of northern Australia and Papua New Guinea (subfamily Selenocosmiinae). There is even  species living on high altitud in Nepal.

In Europe there are a few species; in Spain, Portugal, Italy, Greece and Cyprus of the genus Ischnocolus or Chaetopelma. Recently one species was discovered in Greece (Chaetopelma lymberakisi Chatzaki & Komnenov, 2019).

External links

Schmidt, G.E.W. & V. von Wirth. 1996.
Haplocosmia nepalensis gen. et sp. n., die erste Vogelspinne aus Nepal (Araneida: Theraphosidae: Selenocosmiinae). Arthropoda 4: 12-15.

Radan Kaderk, Nelson Ferretti, Martin Hüsser, Tim Lüddecke & Rick West. 2021
Antikuna, a new genus with seven new species from Peru (Araneae: Theraphosidae: Theraphosinae) and the highest altitude record for the family.
Journal of Natural History Volume 55, 2021 – Issue 21-22 
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