Filling the gap: Noteworthy herpetological discoveries in North West Province, South Africa

The North West Province, South Africa, is centrally situated in southern Africa and characterised by savannah with a mesic, temperate climate the east hot, arid west. While eastern region fairly well-documented for herpetofauna, central western regions are poorly surveyed. Given that Province has been targeted national government development of infrastructure, overall deficiency biodiversity data could result impact assessments not well-informed. We, therefore, carried out herpetofaunal surveys over two years (2019–2020) to improve knowledge on distributions reptiles amphibians. Our added total 578 new records an earlier baseline 1340 records. In addition, 300 were citizen-science platform connection our surveys. As compared previous 100 years, increased dataset 68% just geographic coverage 20% brought number species accurate 102 23 We also recorded range extensions five reptile confirmed presence Dendroaspis polylepis (Black Mamba) west where it had last 1996. resulted significant increase provided better foundation spatial planning accounts maintenance ecological function.