Asian Journal of Research in Zoology

Central India contains an extensive mosaic of deciduous forests, plateaux, river basins, wetlands, agricultural land and rapidly expanding settlements, yet the status of its spider fauna remains difficult to interpret. This critical narrative review evaluates the taxonomic baseline, spatial coverage, habitat associations, functional evidence and conservation significance of spiders in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, while placing the Central Indian Highlands in their wider landscape context. Literature published from 1990 to 31 May 2026 was identified through accessible scholarly indexes, publisher platforms, institutional sources, taxonomic catalogues and citation tracking; older foundational works were retained when methodologically or historically necessary. State checklists report at least 336 species in Madhya Pradesh and 222 species in Chhattisgarh, but these figures are not additive regional estimates because nomenclatural change, duplicate records, unequal survey effort and unverified identifications remain substantial. Apparent family dominance by Araneidae, Thomisidae, Salticidae, Lycosidae and Gnaphosidae is biologically plausible, yet is also shaped by search methods that favour conspicuous web builders and vegetation-dwelling hunters. Most site studies are short, geographically restricted and weakly standardised, with limited reporting of sampling effort, specimen vouchers, adult-stage verification, completeness estimators or molecular confirmation. Consequently, local richness values are best treated as provisional inventories rather than comparable measures of community structure. Evidence from other regions supports spider sensitivity to habitat complexity, agricultural intensification, pesticides and climatic extremes, but Central Indian bioindicator and pest-suppression claims remain largely inferential. A defensible regional programme requires stratified multi-season sampling, integrative taxonomy, curated voucher collections, DNA barcodes, georeferenced occurrence data and repeated monitoring across forest–agriculture–urban gradients. Central India is therefore a biodiversity-rich regional focus rather than a formally designated global biodiversity hotspot, and its spider diversity is simultaneously substantial, under-documented and methodologically uncertain.