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?