Samenvatting
Telangana, the youngest state of India carved from Andhra Pradesh in 2014, encompasses a diverse landscape of
Deccan Plateau scrub, Eastern Ghats hill forests, riverine corridors along the Godavari and Krishna river systems, and
semi-arid grasslands. Despite this habitat diversity, the spider fauna of Telangana remains poorly documented, with
published records largely restricted to incidental observations in broader regional surveys. This study presents new
distributional records for 84 spider species belonging to 28 families from 46 survey localities across Telangana, collected
during systematic field surveys conducted between 2019 and 2021. Among the documented species, 34 represent new
state records for Telangana, 12 are new records for peninsular India, and 3 are putative new species pending formal
description. The families Salticidae (18 species), Araneidae (14 species), and Thomisidae (11 species) are the most
species-rich in the regional fauna. Habitat associations are documented for all species, with deciduous hill forest habitats
supporting the greatest species richness (62 species) and the highest proportion of new records (72%). Morphological
descriptions and photographic documentation are provided for all new state and peninsular records. Updated distribution
maps for 12 priority species are presented. The findings substantially expand knowledge of spider diversity in the Deccan
Plateau biogeographic province and highlight Telangana's forested uplands as a priority area for further arachnological
exploration.