Introduction

Traditional medicine, or the Indigenous knowledge and practices that people of different cultures use for maintenance of physical and mental health, is prevalent across the world (World Health Organization, 2000, 2019). A World Health Organization report stated that 88% of 179 member states that responded to a global survey acknowledged use of traditional medicine by their citizens (World Health Organization, 2019). South Africa is among the developing countries where use of traditional medicine is common, and this practice also occurs in the country’s most urbanised areas such as Johannesburg and Durban (Longmore, 1958; Du Toit, 1980; Ngwenya, 2001; Williams & Whiting, 2016). Traditional cultural practices have also been recorded in urban areas of other countries such as Bolivia (Macía et al., 2005), United Sates of America Balick et al., 2000), and Brazil (Alves & Rosa, 2007). South Africa’s urban traditional medicine markets generally trade in illegally acquired wildlife a majority of which are plant species (Williams & Whiting, 2016). Traditional medicine practices involve both lethal and non-lethal use of plants and animals. Non-lethal traditional medicinal use would for example only involve using leaves of some plants. Conversely, lethal use involves killing some plants to get their roots, removing fungi (with their mycelium) from their substrate, or killing animals to use their tissue in Indigenous remedies.
Although traditional medicine mostly relies on plants (Solovan et al., 2004; Nascimento et al., 2016), animal use in Indigenous remedies nonetheless remains important to society as demand for animal-based remedies leads to overexploitation of animal species (Still, 2003; Alves et al., 2013). Investigating this use of animals in traditional medicine is important for updating knowledge of this Indigenous practice, informing collaborative conservation management of animals used in traditional medicine, and exploration of the economic value of animal trade for medicinal purposes (Alves et al., 2013). Research interest on the use of animals in traditional medicine has been low (Solovan et al., 2004). Among animals that are used in Indigenous remedies across the world, there are at least 331 herptile species (47 amphibians and 284 reptiles) and this number of herptile species known to be used for traditional medicine purposes could increase when comprehensive studies of traditional medicine use are conducted (Alves et al., 2013).
Research focused on traditional medicine markets generally has a problem with identification of specimens available at those markets (Veldman et al., 2020). Morphology-based identifications of animal specimens from traditional medicine markets in urban South Africa showed that some specimens could only be identified to genus or higher taxonomic ranks depending on how well the morphological traits are preserved (Simelane & Kerley, 1998; Ngwenya, 2001; Whiting et al., 2011). Species level identifications of traditional medicine market specimens with badly preserved diagnostic traits can be obtained with DNA barcoding (Whiting et al., 2011). Furthermore, the Indigenous names that traditional health practitioners use for species of interest can also be compared to molecular taxonomy with DNA barcoding (Veldman et al., 2020). The term traditional health practitioner refers to people that are deemed capable of incorporating plants, animals, or minerals in healing practices that are based on Indigenous cultural practices (World Health Organization, 1978). DNA barcoding is an effective tool for identifying both known and unknown species by comparing fragments of an individual’s DNA with DNA sequences of individuals from several species (Hebert et al., 2003b). Using DNA barcoding to confirm the identity of species in traditional medicine markets helps increase our knowledge on the (number of) species that are being sold at those markets and the related conservation pressures (Veldman et al., 2020), and to also detect substitution of species in Indigenous remedies (Newmaster et al., 2013; Veldman et al., 2020). Substitution of plant species in Indigenous remedies poses a risk to human health if non-toxic plants are substituted with toxic species (Ouarghidi et al., 2012). DNA barcoding of traditional medicine specimens in this instance is vital to identifying human health risks in addition to confirming species’ identification. Use of DNA barcoding to confirm the identity of Indigenous medicine specimens hence has promising prospects but its use remains low (Mishra et al., 2016).
Previous studies show that herptile diversity in traditional medicine practices is generally understudied and that South Africa’s urban traditional medicine markets have some animal specimens with badly preserved morphological traits (Simelane & Kerley, 1998; Ngwenya, 2001; Whiting et al., 2011). It is thus worth introducing DNA barcoding to solve the identification problems that come with badly preserved morphology as highlighted by previous research on animals in traditional medicine markets. Research focusing on urban areas in developing countries provides opportunity for innovative scientific approaches that can benefit urban sustainability (Nagendra et al., 2018). As growth of cities on the African continent continues to place pressure on their surrounding environment to meet the needs of the urbanised human populations (Grant, 2015), studies that investigate urban utilisation of wildlife contribute to context-specific interventions to mitigate conservation threats posed by city-dwellers’ use of wildlife. Updated understanding of threats to South Africa’s anuran amphibians and reptiles, this study’s focal taxa, is important as 5% of reptile species and 12% of frog species described from the country are listed on the IUCN Red List of threatened species (IUCN, 2021).
This study aimed to increase understanding of the use of herptiles in traditional medicine and update records of herptile species targeted for South Africa’s urban traditional medicine trade. Achieving these aims required tackling the following questions: 1) Can DNA barcoding pinpoint which herptile species are sold for traditional medicine purposes in South African cities? 2) How are the herptiles of Indigenous medicinal value collected and preserved? 3) What is the accuracy of the Indigenous names used for herptiles found in traditional medicine markets? 4) What are the perceptions of traditional health practitioners towards current conservation measures aimed at traditional medicine markets?