The herpetofauna of Meerkat National Park, Northern Cape province, South Africa

Abstract

We present the first appraisal of the herpetofauna of Meerkat National Park, a recently established conservation area in the Northern Cape province of South Africa. A baseline list of species of amphibians and reptiles recorded from the park was created using a combination of active searching, night drives and trapping over a nine-day survey in March 2025. We also collated ad hoc observations of herpetofauna shared on the community science platform, iNaturalist, to supplement our dataset. Our findings were compared against species expected to occur in the park based on published inferred distribution maps. Our survey resulted in 126 observations from 29 species (6 amphibians and 23 reptiles), increasing the number of known species in the park from 14 to 30 and improving the coverage from 13 to 18 pentads. However, much of the park remains unsurveyed and several expected species were not recorded. Therefore, for a more comprehensive species list, we recommend further sampling of the park.
Conservation implications: Sampling of protected areas is important for generating species lists and building knowledge of population trends that are essential for assisting in species conservation. Our study provides a list of the reptile and amphibian species that currently occur and those that might occur in the newly established Meerkat National Park.