Amphibians and reptiles from Lawachara National Park in Bangladesh

Jonathan Hakim,Scott J Trageser,Shahriar Caesar Rahman,Animesh Ghose,Sheikh Muhammad Abdur Rashid

doi:10.15560/16.5.1239

Abstract

An annotated inventory of the herpetofauna of Lawachara National Park in Bangladesh is presented, based primarily on original field observations recorded during a six-year survey of the park. A total of 71 species are reported, including 19 Anura, one Apoda, two Chelonii, and 49 Squamata. The course of the survey revealed 16 range extensions including 11 new country records for Bangladesh. Eight of the 16 range extensions including six of the 11 country records are reported here for the first time. Deleted from previous Lawachara National Park checklists are 23 species that had been erroneously reported due to misidentification, a species split, or the subsumption of the species within another taxa.

Highlights

Knowledge of the herpetofauna of Bangladesh is poor in comparison to that of other Asian countries and in particular its neighbors India and Myanmar (Mahony et al 2009; Rahman et al 2019)
An annotated inventory of the herpetofauna of Lawachara National Park in Bangladesh is presented, based primarily on original field observations recorded during a six-year survey of the park
Lawachara National Park (LNP) is a 12.5 km2 nature reserve in the northeast corner of Bangladesh on the western cusp of the Indo-Burma Biodiversity Hotspot, where a confluence of diversity occurs as the biogeography is of both Gondwanan and Laurasian origin (Reza 2010)

Summary

Introduction

Knowledge of the herpetofauna of Bangladesh is poor in comparison to that of other Asian countries and in particular its neighbors India and Myanmar (Mahony et al 2009; Rahman et al 2019). Park officials installed signage in 2009 stating that the park contained four species of amphibians and six species of reptiles, in contrast to 246 bird species. This remarkably low estimate appears to have been based on a 2003 report by Nature Conservation Management (NACOM 2003), and those figures continue to be cited in published papers (Haider and Kabir 2014; Sohel et al 2015). Reza and Perry (2015) expanded substantially on this base by producing a species list for LNP of 15 amphibians and This remarkably low estimate appears to have been based on a 2003 report by Nature Conservation Management (NACOM 2003), and those figures continue to be cited in published papers (Haider and Kabir 2014; Sohel et al 2015). Reza and Perry (2015) expanded substantially on this base by producing a species list for LNP of 15 amphibians and

Methods

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Conclusion