Squamate Fauna of Southern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (Tank and Lakki Marwat Districts), Pakistan
Squamate Fauna of Southern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (Tank and Lakki Marwat Districts), Pakistan
Muhammad Shehzad1, Fida Ullah1, Shahid Niaz Khan1, Abdul Majid1*, Muhammad Rais2, Muazzam Ali Khan3, Tariq Ahmad4 and Sanaullah Khan5
ABSTRACT
Reptiles constitute a significant percentage of vertebrate biomass and occupy an important position in the ecosystem. They are considered important indicators of ecosystem health. Populations of many reptiles are declining globally due to numerous threats. Lack of information about the geographical distributions of species hinders research and management agendas. Species checklist and herpetofauna inventories of various areas of Pakistan are available, but many geographical areas of the country have still not been explored. We, therefore, conducted the present study to fill this gap. We carried out this study in 21 randomly selected sites featuring mountain regions, tropical dry deciduous forests, sandy patches, sand dunes, hard clay cliffs, hard soil, and small rivers in southern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa from April 2021 to October 2022. We collected a total of 28-eight squamate species distributed over 13 families. We documented 13 lizards (eight families) and 15 snakes (five families) species from the study area. Our findings will enhance existing knowledge of the herpetofauna of the country and could be used to prepare species atlas of the country in the future.
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