Museum holdings of the broad-headed snake Hoplocephalus bungaroides (Squamata: Elapidae)

The broad-headed snake Hoplocephalus bungaroides (Schlegel, 1837) is a highly endangered species endemic to the Sydney basin. We attempted to track down the whereabouts of museum specimens of this snake by contacting mainly Australian, European and North American curators of natural history museums and university herpetological collections. We received replies from 200 institutions, and from these we present details of 159 specimens from 27 museums in 11 countries reported to us as H. bungaroides. Countries include Australia (108 specimens), Germany (13), the United States (9), United Kingdom (7), France (4), Belgium (5), the Netherlands (5), Austria (3), Denmark (3), Italy (1), and Switzerland (1). At least 47 specimens are from the 19th Century, and accurate locality records were available for 98 specimens. Obviously, all of the specimens have value insofar as they may provide important biological data that will be useful to researchers working on the future conservation of this snake. Many of these specimens also provide important historical evidence of the species' past distribution.