Madagascar has historically suffered from high fragmentation of forested habitats, often leading to biodiversity loss. Neverthless, forest fragments still retain high levels of biological diversity. The Haute Matsiatra Region (south-eastern Madagascar) hosts the renowned Andringitra National Park and several surrounding isolated forest fragments embedded in a matrix of human-dominated landscape. During a herpetological survey conducted in the Region, we visited a total of 25 sites. We applied a molecular taxonomic approach to identify the collected material and generate new reference sequences to improve the molecular identification of Malagasy herpetofauna. We identified a total of 28 amphibian and 38 squamate taxa and provided a systematic account for each one of them. Nine of the identified taxa are candidate species, amongst which one was newly identified. We extended the known distributional range of 21 taxa (nine amphibians and 12 squamates). Although the largest forest fragments hold a higher number of species, we also detected a relatively high herpetological diversity in small patches. Our results highlight the importance of investigating small forest fragments to contribute to a better understanding of the patterns of diversity and distribution of the amphibians and reptiles of Madagascar.

中文翻译：

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发现马达加斯加东南部小森林碎片的爬虫学多样性（Haute Matsiatra）

马达加斯加历来遭受森林栖息地高度破碎化的困扰，经常导致生物多样性丧失。尽管如此，森林碎片仍然保留着高度的生物多样性。Haute Matsiatra 地区（马达加斯加东南部）拥有著名的安德林吉特拉国家公园和几个周围孤立的森林碎片，它们嵌入在人类主导的景观矩阵中。在该地区进行的爬虫学调查期间，我们共访问了 25 个地点。我们应用分子分类学方法来识别收集的材料并生成新的参考序列，以改进马达加斯加爬行动物的分子识别。我们总共确定了 28 种两栖动物和 38 种有鳞动物分类群，并为它们中的每一种提供了系统说明。确定的分类群中有九个是候选物种，其中一个是新发现的。我们扩展了 21 种分类群（9 种两栖动物和 12 种有鳞动物）的已知分布范围。虽然最大的森林碎片拥有更多的物种，但我们也在小块区域检测到相对较高的爬虫多样性。我们的结果强调了调查小森林碎片的重要性，以有助于更好地了解马达加斯加两栖动物和爬行动物的多样性和分布模式。