
Residing within this group is the most species-rich lineage of tarantulas, the genus Aphonopelma, with 87 nominal species distributed throughout North and Central America, 55 of which are thought to occur in the United States ( World Spider Catalog 2015). The family Theraphosidae (tarantulas, baboon spiders, earth tigers) is the most diverse lineage ( World Spider Catalog 2015) of spiders placed in the infraorder Mygalomorphae ( Raven 1985, Hedin and Bond 2006, Bond et al.
