A checklist of herpetofauna of Telangana state, India

: A checklist of herpetofauna of Telangana, India including accepted English name, scientific name along with authority, Telugu and vernacular name, IUCN, Indian Wildlife Protection Act and CITES status, and endemicity is presented in this paper. The herpetofauna diversity of Telangana is represented by 98 species including 16 species of amphibians belonging to four families, one species of crocodile, six species of testudines, 35 species of saurians and 40 species of snakes. Three species— Hemidactylus flavicaudus , H. xericolus , and H. aemulus —are endemic to Telangana.


INTRODUCTION
The herpetofaunal diversity of Telangana is in the process of being documented (Khartade et al. 2019;Dinesh et al. 2021;Narayana & Bharat 2021) and due to unavailability of a comprehensive database many doubtful species are finding place in various checklists being published from time to time. Through this short communication we aim to provide a checklist of amphibian and reptilian species currently known from Telangana published literature and personal observations.
Telangana , located in the Deccan Plateau in the south central part of peninsular India, was part of the erstwhile united Andhra Pradesh . Before that it contributed to the major land area of the Hyderabad State (1948)(1949)(1950)(1951)(1952)(1953)(1954)(1955)(1956) and the state of Hyderabad . It encompasses an area of 1,22,077 km 2 . Two major rivers, Godavari and Krishna, along with their major and minor tributaries flow through the state (Prasad & Srinivasulu 2021).
Earlier known works on amphibians and reptiles of the region roughly corresponding to present day Telangana State include the historical works that documented list of herpetofauna in Madras Presidency, Bombay Presidency, and Central Provinces. Stoliczka (1871Stoliczka ( , 1872) described a species of leaf-toed gecko based on specimens collected by W.T. Blanford from Godavari River basin near Bhadrachalam (in erstwhile Madras Presidency).

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
In this checklist, 98 species of herpetofauna including 17 species of amphibians and 81 species of reptiles are listed (Table 1; Images 1 to 72) as being present in Telangana. The amphibian diversity is represented by J TT  Nilss o ni a g a n g e ti c a B D,I N, P K ( C u vi er, 1 8 2 5)  Among the amphibians, two species are endemic to India (with one to peninsular India), 11 species endemic to South Asia (one species from India and Sri Lanka, rest from more than two countries in South Asia). Among the reptiles, three species of reptiles (Hemidactylus flavicaudus Lajmi, Giri, Singh & Agarwal, 2020;H. xericolus Lajmi, Giri, Singh & Agarwal, 2020;and H. aemulus Kumar, Srinivasulu & Srinivasulu, 2022) are endemic to Telangana State, 27 species are endemic to India (with 19 from peninsular India), 26 species endemic to southern Asia (seven species from at least two countries, five species from three countries, and rest from more than three countries in southern Asia). One species of snake, the Ornate Flying Snake Chrysopelea ornata, was discovered in a timber depot in Hyderabad in July 2017 and is thought to have been inadvertently transported to the urban ecosystem by a timber truck.
As per the IUCN Red List database, the amphibian diversity of Telangana includes 14 Least Concern species, one species-Duttaphrynus hololius-as Data Deficient, and one species-Euphlyctis cyanophlyctisis Not Evaluated. Amongst the reptiles, five species-Crocodylus palustris, Geochelone elegans, Nilssonia gangetica, N. leithii, and Eutropis ashwamedhi-are listed as Vulnerable. Two species-Melanochelys trijuga and Eutropis nagarjunensis-are Near Threatened, while one species-Platyceps bholanathi-is Data Deficient. As many as 26 species are of Least Concern, and 44 species are yet to be evaluated.
Among amphibians, only two species-Hoplobatrachus crassus and H. tigerinus-are included in Schedule IV of Indian Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972. The latter species is also included in Appendix III of CITES. Among reptiles, six species are included in Schedule I, six species are included in Schedule II, and 35 species are included in Schedule IV of Indian Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972. As many as 18 species are included in CITES list-five species in Appendix I, 10 species in Appendix II, and three species in Appendix III.
While compiling this list we have detected 10 species www.threatenedtaxa.org The Journal of Threatened Taxa (JoTT) is dedicated to building evidence for conservation globally by publishing peer-reviewed articles online every month at a reasonably rapid rate at www.threatenedtaxa.org. All articles published in JoTT are registered under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License unless otherwise mentioned. JoTT allows allows unrestricted use, reproduction, and distribution of articles in any medium by providing adequate credit to the author(s) and the source of publication.