The mygalomorph (trapdoor spiders, tarantulas, and their relatives) spider family Cyrtaucheniidae (waferlid trapdoor spiders) includes 102 described species according to Platnick (2013), who follows recent authors by separating into a distinct family, Euctenizidae, a number of genera formerly placed in the Cyrtaucheniidae and by transferring two other genera from Cyrtaucheniidae to Nemesiidae. For North America north of Mexico, Platnick (2013) recognizes just a single cyrtaucheniid (Cyrtauchenius talpa) but 60 species of euctenizids (from a total known world fauna of 66 species; outside the United States, five additional species are known from Mexico and one from Guadeloupe).
The Cyrtaucheniidae has been viewed as one of the most diverse mygalomorph families in North America, in both number of species and diversity of ecological habits (Bond and Hedin 2006), but as noted above, recent work has indicated that the family as currently composed is polyphyletic (Bond et al. 2012) and this diversity is almost all now assigned to the family Euctenizidae. Bond and Opell (2002) revised the "southwestern North American Cyrtaucheniidae" (subfamily Euctenizinae). The euctenizines were included in the family Ctenizidae until Raven (1985) named the group as a subfamily within the Cyrtaucheniidae. More recently, the status of this group as a distinct family, Euctenizidae,has been supported by multiple studies (Goloboff 1993; Bond and Opell 2002; Bond and Hedin 2006; Hedin and Bond 2006; Bond et al. 2012).
(Bond 2005)
