South Asian Snake Diversity: The Golden Age of Discovery is Not Yet Over!

Abstract

The most ancient peopled, as well as biologically diverse landscape of the world may well be southern Asia. Traditionally, the area comprises only the Indian Subcontinent, while at other times, it refers to all of subtropical and tropical Asia, delineated by the Indus basin to the west, across the southern flanks of the Himalayan range and the land to its south, eastwards into Indo-China, Indo-Malaya, across the insular regions of Sundal and, stopping at the Strait of Lombok. This, then, is the rough interpretation in this work, a collection of essays by prominent scholars for each country, with notable omissions (such as Indo-China and northern Indo-Malaya), for constraints of time in producing this work. The faunas for a majority of individual nations have been summarised in scholarly papers and books, such as field guides; other resources are available in the form of online databases, citizen science portals and even on private blogs and websites. The cumulative human knowledge on south Asia’s snake fauna is thus substantial, as well as dynamic, making discoveries and reviews outdated faster than ever before. The speed at which knowledge is acquired and transmitted has also aided the recognition, and sometimes action on conservation issues faster than in the past. This introductory chapter argues that the golden age of species discovery is not over yet, as emphasized by the discoveries made in the past decade, including a number of novel taxa.