Journal of the Royal Society of Western Australia, 87(3), September 2004 
88B 
88U 
89U 
90U 
-89B 
---90B 
| 1 1 i i-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1 
1.00 0.75 0.50 0.25 0.00 
Bray-Curtis 
Figure 3. Similarity of lizard assemblages for the three years of study on an area that was burnt (B) by the fires of January 1990 and a 
similar adjacent area that remained unbumt (U). 
the literature, identified between 26 and 68 species, while 
the two bioregional surveys had 57 and 76 species. The 
67 reptiles species recorded at Abydos/Woodstock is, 
therefore, surpassed only in number by one bioregional 
survey, the Carnarvon Basin survey by Rolfe and 
McKenzie (2000) and the Red Sands survey in the Great 
Victoria Desert of Pianka (1996). The Carnarvon Basin 
bioregional survey encompassed an area of nearly 92,000 
km 2 , over 60 times greater than that of the present survey 
area. However, in contradistinction, the Red Sands 
survey in the Great Victoria Desert of Pianka (1996) 
covered around 1 km 2 of Triodia dominated red dune 
landform, indicating that diversity at a small landscape 
level may also be exceedingly rich in arid desert 
environments. Thompson et al. (2003a) also calculated the 
Shannon diversity index of their fourteen sites as ranging 
from 2.00 [Tanami Desert B] to 3.60 [Carnarvon Basin] 
and the a log series diversity as ranging from 4.05 [Bold 
Park] to 17.29 [Carnarvon Basin]. The same diversity 
measures applied to the reptile survey for Abydos/ 
Woodstock area are 4.64 and 14.94, respectively, 
indicating the exceptionally high diversity of the study 
area. The total herpetofauna of Abydos/Woodstock is 
comparable in number (72) to the four times larger 
Hamersley Range [Karajini] National Park (Johnstone 
1983) that lies 200 km to the south. 
The Chichester subregion of the Pilbara bioregion 
contains 105 reptile and 10 frog species in an area that 
encompasses over 90, 000 km 2 (How & Cowan unpubl.). 
The Abydos/Woodstock area lies within the Chichester 
subregion and the 67 species recorded represents 64% of 
the total known subregional reptile fauna. The five 
amphibian species recorded in this survey represent only 
50% of the total amphibian fauna documented for the 
subregion. 
Snakes generally are infrequently captured or 
observed during herpetofaunal surveys (How 1998; M. 
Cowan, CALM Kalgoorlie pers. comm.) such that their 
true representation in reptile assemblages is often 
underestimated by short-term sampling surveys. This is 
clearly demonstrated in the data compiled in Thompson 
et al. (2003a), where snakes reach their highest 
proportion in assemblages in studies that have the 
longest temporal span, e.g. Bold Park (How 1998), Red 
Sands (Pianka 1996) and Bungalbin (Withers 
unpublished). During the present study each of the 15 
species of snakes contributed less than 0.5% of 
individual records, a percentage regarded as 
representing 'rare' species by Thompson et al. (2003a). A 
more realistic comparison of diversity and assemblage 
similarity is therefore best confined to the more easily 
recorded lizard species. 
The richness of lizards (51 species) from the Abydos/ 
Woodstock area is exceptional and represents the third 
most speciose lizard assemblage yet reported in 
Australia. Pianka (1996) recorded 53 species on the Red 
Sands site in the Great Victoria Desert and Rolfe and 
McKenzie (2000) recorded 71 species for the Carnarvon 
Basin survey. James (1994) recorded 40 lizard species on 
the central Australian study site, which was dominated 
by Triodia. In contrast to the central Australian study and 
the present one in the Pilbara, Pianka sampled for nearly 
four years of field time over a 28 year period compared 
to the 74 days of sampling during the present survey and 
92 
