 The species was first described by V. von Wirth in 1991, as "Haplopelma schmidti", based on a single female from Vietnam.Separately, J. F. Wang, X. J. Peng and L. P. Xie described "Selenocosmia huwena" in 1993, based on a female from Guangxi, China.In 2000, Günter Schmidt first synonymized the two, a decision confirmed by Ming-Sheng Zhu and Rui Zhang in 2008.