One’s trash is another’s retreat: Reptiles and amphibians recorded beneath dumped materials in western Sydney, Australia

Abstract

Mass dumping of unwanted materials is a serious issue in many regions, though ironically these materials inadvertently provide artificial refugia for herpetofauna. Over a period of 17 years, we observed 26 species of squamates and 13 species of anurans in remnant bushland areas in western Sydney. Of these, 20 species of squamates from five families (Agamidae, Diplodactylidae, Elapidae, Scincidae and Typhlopidae) and nine anuran species from three families (Hylidae, Limnodynastidae and Myobatrachidae) were found by searching beneath dumped materials. This constitutes a large proportion of observed species (74%) using dumped materials as refugia, which reinforces how much these non-natural materials can be advantageously leveraged for detecting herpetofauna. In particular, our detections of three snake species, the Red-naped Snake (Furina diadema), Golden-crowned Snake (Cacophis squamulosus) and Blackish Blindsnake (Anilios nigrescens), were exclusively from searching under dumped materials. Two other species, the Yellow-faced Whipsnake (Demansia psammophis) and Smooth Toadlet (Uperoleia laevigata), were predominantly detected by lifting dumped materials. Thus, the availability of such materials to search under appeared to facilitate substantial amounts of detections of these species.