Originally allocated to the genus Attus, the species was first identified by Eugène Simon in 1875 and published in a paper by Carl Ludwig Koch.

[1] The spider is generally black with broad white stripes across the opisthosoma.

[2] The species has been found in an area that pans from the Canary Islands, through Turkey and Israel, across the Caucasus and Russia, to Central Asia and as far as China.

[1] The species is endemic across Europe, and has been identified in surveys across a wide range of countries including France,[3] the Czech Republic[4] and Poland.

[7][8] The shells, which may weigh five or more times as much as the spider, are used to shelter from attacks by ants.