Brachypelma genus has a long and varied past. It first came into being in 1890 introduced by Eugene Simon to cover some species previously listed as Eurypelma. His reason for this was because he doubted the taxonomy of Eurypelma believing it was confused with Avicularia. In 1897 this was discounted by F. Pickard-Cambridge and Brachypelma was considered to be a junior synonymy of Eurypelma. In 1903 however Pocock broke up the genus Eurypelma, and Brachypelma was reinstated. In 1942 Roewer reinstated Eurypelma, and Brachypelma was again stopped.

Valerio reintroduced the Brachypelma genus in 1980, which by then included emilia, vagans, smithi, albiceps and pallidum ( albiceps and pallidum have since been re classified as Aphonopelma). There have been more added since, but once again Brachypelma is under the spot light with major research due to be published next year.