Author(s) agree that this article remains permanently open access under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 International License Research Paper FAUNAL DIVERSITY OF OONOPIDAE (ARANEOMORPHAE: ARANEAE: ARACHNIDA) IN INDIA Ajeet Kumar Tiwari 1 , Garima Singh 2 and Rajendra Singh 3 1 Department of Zoology, Buddha P.G. College, Kushinagar, U.P., 2 Department of Zoology, University of Rajasthan, Jaipur-302004, Rajasthan, 3 Department of Zoology, Deendayal Upadhyay University of Gorakhpur-273009, U.P., India. Abstract The present article deals with the faunal diversity of the spiders belonging to the family Oonopidae. In India, the Oonopidae is represented by 52 species in 15 genera in 15 states and 2 union territories and out of them 34 species are endemic. In India, Triaeris Simon, 1890 is the largest genus consisting of 7 species. Maximum 13 species of these spiders were recorded in Tamil Nadu followed by 11 species in Maharashtra, 9 species in West Bengal, 8 species in Gujarat, 7 species in Meghalaya and so on. Strangely, no oonopid spiders are recorded in larger states of India like Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Punjab, Rajasthan, Telangana and other states are very poorly represented by these spiders and need extensive research. Key words: Oonopidae, globin spiders, faunal diversity, checklist. INTRODUCTION Spiders are chelicerate arthropods (Araneae: Arachnida) being highly diverse and abundant terrestrial predators. Their presence is often related to the structural quality of the ecosystems, due to their effect on biocontrol of arthropods, usually insects [1]. Despite knowing this fact, little is known about the spider fauna in agricultural areas. The order Araneae ranks seventh in global diversity (49,154 species) [2]; after the five largest insect orders (Coleoptera – ca. 4,00,000 species, Lepidoptera – ca. 1,80,000 species, Hymenoptera – ca. 1,50,000 species, Diptera – ca. 1,25,000 species, Hemiptera – ca. 50,000 species) and one arachnid order (Acari – over 50,000 species) in terms of species diversity [3,4]. Out of them, only 1855 species belonging to 477 genera in 61 families are reported in India [5]. However, several species in wild and museum collections still await description and classification. It is estimated that only 20-30% of existing species have been described. Despite recent researches on the diversity and distribution of spiders in India, their number is inadequate as compared to other parts Journal of Global Biosciences Peer Reviewed, Refereed, Open-Access Journal ISSN 2320-1355 Volume 10, Number 1, 2021, pp. 8340-8351 Website: www.mutagens.co.in URL: www.mutagens.co.in/jgb/vol.10/01/100111.pdf