Barcoding the herpetofauna of Timor-Leste

Recent collections of amphibians and reptiles from Timor-Leste in the National Museum of Natural History (NMNH-USNM) and Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University (MCZ) contain just over 1000 herpetological voucher specimens from Timor-Leste, including associated tissue samples. These samples represent 66 species from 33 genera in 17 families and include 64 of the 66 amphibian and reptile species currently known from that country, which encompasses the eastern half of Timor Island in the Lesser Sunda Archipelago. At the time of this study, there were no molecular data available for amphibians and reptiles from the island, with very few available for the entire region. This area is of exceptional interest for studies of biodiversity, and faunal inventories from this region have revealed the existence of dozens of species unknown to science. This NCBI BioProject contains DNA barcode records that were generated from these collections with support from the federally-funded Smithsonian Institution DNA Barcode Network.