The Herpetofauna of Upper Niger National Park, Guinea, West Africa

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Issue Date
2005-03-31Author
Greenbaum, Eli
Carr, John L.
Publisher
Natural History Museum, University of Kansas
Type
Article
Article Version
Scholarly/refereed, publisher version
Is part of series
Scientific Papers;37
Rights
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
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We conducted a preliminary survey of the herpetofauna in Upper Niger National Park at the end of tlie dry season in 2002. Museum holdings and literature records from localities within the park were combined with our data to obtain an overall picture of the herpetofauna. The park contains a mosaic of forest and savanna that straddles the Niger River. Twenty-two species of amphibians and 34 species of reptiles were recorded from the park; four species of amphibians and two of reptiles are the first records from Guinea. Seven species of reptiles are listed as threatened by the lUCN Red List or CITES, but according to the Global Amphibian Assessment, none of the amphibians is threatened. Stomach contents of an arboreal colubrid snake included a species of bat (Mops condylurus), which represents the first confirmed record from Guinea. Conservation of the park is paramount because: 1) it is the only protected area containing dry forest in Guinea; 2) gallery forest provides suitable habitat for amphibian, reptile, and mammal species otherwise restricted to tropical rainforest elsewhere in West Africa; and 3) .several species of threatened reptiles
endemic to West Africa are in the park.
ISSN
1094-0782Collections
- Scientific Papers [46]
Citation
Greenbaum, E., & Carr, J. L. (2005). The herpetofauna of Upper Niger National Park, Guinea, West Africa / by Eli Greenbaum and John L. Carr. Scientific Papers, (37), 1-21. doi:10.5962/bhl.title.8470
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