Refinement of locality data for FitzSimons’ Garter Snake Elapsoidea sundevallii fitzsimonsi Loveridge, 1948 provides a better estimation of its distribution

Abstract

Foundational data on species taxonomy, distribution and ecology forms the basis of assessing species for their conservation status. For African reptiles, distributional data are sorely lacking for many taxa, sometimes resulting in inadequate conservation assessments (Tolley et al., 2016). In South Africa, some geographic areas are poorly sampled with gaps exceeding 15,000 km2 in which there are no locality records (see Branch, 2014) and the implications of this could be considerable in terms of assessing species for extinction risk. To address these information gaps, we surveyed in the poorly sampled arid western Kalahari region of North West Province, South Africa during 2019.