An annotated checklist of the amphibians and reptiles of North Padre Island, Texas, USA, with comparisons to adjacent barrier island and mainland herpetofauna.

Mike Duran

doi:10.3897/zookeys.1073.57241

Abstract

Padre Island is the world’s longest barrier island and includes the longest stretch of undeveloped barrier island in the world. Largely due to harsh environmental conditions and difficult access, only cursory and incomplete checklists and subjective estimates of abundance have been produced. The results of an inventory of amphibians and reptiles of North Padre Island conducted 2002–2020, including the results of extensive field surveys conducted 2002–2003, are reported herein. Natural history museum and iNaturalist records are summarized and compared among North and South Padre and Mustang islands and the mainland portion of the seven counties in which the islands occur. The conservation status of rare species and extirpation of others is noted. The morphology and taxonomic status of some unique occurrences are discussed. Eleven species of amphibians and 39 species of reptiles presently occur or have occurred naturally or as introduced or accidental species on North Padre Island. Twelve species of amphibians and 50 species of reptiles occur or have occurred on North Padre, South Padre, and Mustang islands. Thirty-one species of amphibians and 93 species of reptiles have been reported from the seven counties in which the islands occur.

Highlights

Extending for 178 km along the southern Texas coast, from Packery Channel in Corpus Christi to the Rio Grande River delta at the southern tip of the state, Padre Island is the world’s longest barrier island (Fig. 1; Tunnell and Judd 2002; National Park Service 2020)
Forty-four institutions held 14,830 specimens from the seven counties including 1751 specimens from the South Texas barrier islands held by 26 institutions and 47 specimens held by six institutions from San José Island, Harbor Island, South Bird Island, and other small man-made and natural islands in the Laguna Madre and Corpus Christi Bay (Table 1, 2; Suppl. material 1)
Three species of amphibians and nine species of reptiles that occur on North Padre Island are known only from iNaturalist observations; one of those amphibians is known only from an audio file

Summary

Introduction

Extending for 178 km along the southern Texas coast, from Packery Channel in Corpus Christi to the Rio Grande River delta at the southern tip of the state, Padre Island is the world’s longest barrier island (Fig. 1; Tunnell and Judd 2002; National Park Service 2020). The southern 114 km of North Padre Island lies within the Padre Island National Seashore (PINS), established in 1962, which contains the longest undeveloped stretch of barrier island in the world (Tunnell and Judd 2002) Prior to this inventory, only cursory and incomplete checklists, based on limited or no field work, have been produced (Rabalais 1975; Baker and Rabalais 1978). This is the first inventory that includes extensive field work, as well as verification and enumeration of museum and other verifiable records

Methods

Results

Conclusion