A new publication documenting the historic distributional records of amphibians and reptiles in South Dakota was published in the June 2017 issue of Herpetological Review. This publication is a series of 100 county records from South Dakota collected over the past several decades from 18 different natural history collections. Many of these specimens were part of the former South Dakota State University collection that is currently housed at the University of South Dakota (and will soon be transferred to the Biodiversity Collections at the University of Texas at Austin). Included in these records is the only specimen of a Mudpuppy from South Dakota, a species historically reported in lists of the amphibians of South Dakota (Over 1923; Over 1943), but until now, no specimens were known to exist. These records highlight the continued importance of natural history collections, and especially, collections housed at regional or small universities. These South Dakota records have been added to the Amphibians and Reptiles of South Dakota website and help fill gaps in the distributions of species across the state.

Davis DR, Farkas JK, Johannsen RE, Maltaverne GA. 2017. Historic amphibian and reptile county records from South Dakota, USA. Herpetological Review 48:394–406. [PDF]