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. 2025 Jan 18:2025:baaf040.
doi: 10.1093/database/baaf040.

A database on the historical and current occurrences of snakes in Eswatini

Ara Monadjem  1   2 , Richard C Boycott  3 , Thea Litscha-Koen  4 , Adam Kane  5 , Wisdom M Dlamini  6 , Lindelwa Mmema  4 , Katharine L Strutton  4 , Zakhele Hlophe  4 , Sara Padidar  1   4   7
Affiliations

A database on the historical and current occurrences of snakes in Eswatini

Ara Monadjem et al. Database (Oxford). .

Abstract

Snakes are among the most difficult terrestrial vertebrates to survey, resulting in poor distributional information on most species. This database comprises of 3812 records of 58 species of snakes in 37 genera reported from within the boundaries of Eswatini. The data were compiled from multiple sources including museum specimens, iNaturalist records, literature records, and snake rescue operations. For each specimen reported in the database, we provide the scientific name, latitude and longitude coordinates, and location. Most records also have an associated date. This comprehensive database will be useful to biodiversity experts, conservationists, medical practitioners, researchers, and snake enthusiasts, especially for mapping and modelling snake distributions in the country. To allow easy viewing of the distribution of snakes in the country, we provide an online visualization tool, which should allow a greater number of non-scientists to utilize this database.

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Conflict of interest statement

None declared.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Map of Eswatini with the location of the snakes in this study overlain on a digital elevation map to show the wide range in elevation with highest values in the west and lowest values in the east.
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
Number of snake records per year in Eswatini since 1963, when the first recorded snake specimen was collected from the country.
Figure 3.
Figure 3.
Map showing locations of snake occurrences in Eswatini for (A) historic (pre-2000) and (B) current (post-2000) time periods.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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