See text The Harpactirinae (commonly called baboon spiders) are a subfamily of tarantulas which are native to the continent of Africa.

Like many Old World tarantulas, they have a relatively strong venom and can inflict a painful bite.

Harpactirinae are ground-dwelling spiders which build silk-lined burrows, often under debris such as stones, using their fangs and chelicerae for digging.

In addition, the genus Brachionopus (Pocock, 1897) has been suggested for placement in this subfamily, but its taxonomy is currently disputed.

: transferred here from the Barychelidae by Raven, 1985a: 112; Brachyonopus is an unjustified emendation; Raven's transfer was not accepted by Charpentier, 1993: 5 or Schmidt, 2002a: 12 and 2008: 3, who nevertheless identified no close relatives of the genus among the known barychelids; Gallon, 2002: 204 argued for its inclusion in the Barychelidae but indicated that it "does not fit in any current barychelid subfamily" but later (Gallon, 2010b: 79) considered it a harpactirine.".