The goal of our study was to evaluate changes in the assemblage of reptiles in an urban habitat over 100 years of increasing urbanization, aiming to identify which ecological attributes allowed the persistence of species that can be found in the area today. To accomplish that, we accessed historical records in two important scientific collections for the study area and carried out fieldwork to access the current reptile assemblage in an urban green area, in São Paulo, Brazil. The dataset presented here is the result of all individuals collected in the study area between 1908 and 2019, including also the animals collected by the authors during the fieldwork carried out in 2016 and preserved in the collection. 

To have acess to the specimens, we asked the curators to provide us with a spreedsheet with all animals (reptiles and amphibians) that were collected in the city of São Paulo from the first record to the last available in the collections. We received a dataset and filtered it to show only specimens with a specific location reported. We then selected all specimens collected at the Instituto Butantan or at the Universidade de São Paulo. Specimens without specific location were disregarded. 

Once we had all the specimens from the study site, we also assessed whether they were currently available in the collection, and missing specimens were disregarded in the data analysis. We check preserved specimens and, when necessary, seek advice from senior herpetologists in correctly identifying specimens. However, it was only necessary once, for an amphibian we collected during fieldwork, which we sent to Dr. José P. Pombal Jr. Except for the animals that we personally collected using specific methods, the records before and after 2016 came from occasional encounters involving the Institution's staff. 

After processing all data and information about the specimens preserved in the collections, we used the species richness of each period/year to infer the reptile assemblage in the area during our sampling time. 

The dataset is available in Excel, so it can be easily open in any software that can read .xls and similar.