Helio Ricardo da Silva

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Verified

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• PhD
• Professor (Associate) at Federal Rural University of Rio de Janeiro

Herein we present a survey on the variation in the morphology of the structures that compose the larval buccopharyngeal cavity of Thoropa miliaris tadpoles based on samples of 18 different stages of development, from embryos (removed from the egg capsules) to stages near or at metamorphosis. Our observations revealed that several structures vary in...

Anurans of the genus Brachycephalus are among the smallest vertebrates in the world, due to an extreme process of miniaturization. As an example of this process, Brachycephalus species show loss of fingers, loss of the eardrum and middle ear, bone fusions, and the presence of paravertebral plates and parotic plaque. However, no studies addressing t...

Scinax is the most species-rich genus of Neotropical treefrogs, with 129 currently recognized species divided between two major clades, the S. catharinae and S. ruber clades. The S. catharinae clade includes 52 species currently placed in the S. perpusillus and S. catharinae groups, whereas the S. ruber clade is composed of 77 species, 13 of which...

Dendropsophini is a highly diverse clade with a controversial phylogenetic and taxonomic history. Different generic arrangements have been proposed and the monophyly of several clades supported or rejected. Previous evidence suggested that larval morphology could play an important role in our understanding of the evolution and diversification of De...

Anurans have served as models in evolutionary studies on reproduction and development. Several generalizations have emerged but it is unclear whether they represent the diversity of the entire group. We studied the development of two species of the Neotropical family Cycloramphidae. Frogs in this family have peculiar spawning sites and developmenta...

Synchrotron radiation phase-contrast microtomography is sensitive to low attenuating tissues, giving an alternative visualisation of the sample and being useful for investigating microstructure inside biological specimens without staining them with a contrast medium. The phase-contrast technique has been widely used in the scientific community, as...

The Amazonia and the Atlantic Forest, separated by the diagonal of open formations, are two ecoregions that comprise the most diverse tropical forests in the world. The Sphaenorhynchini tribe is among the few tribes of anurans that occur in both rainforests , and their historical biogeographic have never been proposed. In this study, we infer a dat...

Purpose In the context of synchrotron microtomography using propagation-based phase-contrast imaging (XSPCT), we evaluated the performance of semiautomatic and automatic image segmentation of soft biological structures by means of Dice Similarity Coefficient (DSC) and volume quantification. Methods We took advantage of the phase-contrast effects o...

The aim of this work is to present the thesis “On the Ontogenetic Evolution of the Human Embryo in its Relations with Phylogenesis,” by Affonso Regulo de Oliveira Fausto (1866–1930), published in Brazil in 1890. To our knowledge, it was one of the first Brazilian academic works focused specifically on evolution. It was also the first doctoral thesi...

After more than one-hundred years of studies, there is still no consensus regarding the names for the nasal elements in Pipidae and their correspondence to that of other frogs. Names vary depending on authors’ preferences for an explanatory process associated with the observed state of the structure. Some of the names indicate absence, while others...

en The evolutionary success of anurans can be partially explained by the occurrence of free-living larvae. Tadpoles occupy several distict habitats, including the terrestrial environment. Semiterrestriality appears to have evolved seven times in anurans, and tadpoles of distantly related lineages have converged in a set of phenotypic characters, su...

A literature survey for the external morphology of tadpoles for species in the genus Cycloramphus Tschudi, 1838, which is mainly represented by larval descriptions, resulted in finding some inconsistent character descriptions. In a few cases, some of the information is either not presented or mistakenly reported; in some cases, the illustrations pr...

The number of reports of tick parasitism in amphibians and reptiles has increased over the past few years, including new host and location records for Amblyomma rotundatum and Amblyomma dissimile. However, knowledge of the geographical distribution remains incomplete, and in many regions of Brazil, the presence of these vectors has not been investi...

O estudo da anatomia dos animais remonta aos primórdios da ciência e persiste até os dias atuais. A anatomia comparada é utilizada como evidência de evolução, auxiliando na classificação dos organismos, reconstrução da história filogenética das espécies, dedução dos padrões ancestrais, e definição dos processos e padrões que geram e mantém a divers...

Female fecundity is an important selective force leading to female-biased sexual size dimorphism (SSD) in frogs. Because anurans exhibit diverse reproductive modes, we investigated whether variation in SSD and fecundity are related with oviposition site. We asked whether arboreal breeding species show pronounced female-biased SSD and if, paradoxica...

Amphibians are models for studying applied ecological issues such as habitat loss, pollution, disease, and global climate change due to their sensitivity and vulnerability to changes in the environment. Developmental series of amphibians are informative about their biology, and X-ray based 3D reconstruction holds promise for quantifying morphologic...

This 3-minute video was presented at the 2020 Animal Behavior Society Virtual Conference. It relates to the article "Egg-laying site, fecundity and degree of sexual size dimorphism in frogs', by Silva et al., published in the Biological Journal of the Linnean Society. It can also be accessed in FIGSHARE.

The South American and West Indian Casque-headed Treefrogs (Hylidae: Hylinae: Lophyohylini) include 85 species. These are notably diverse in morphology (e.g. disparate levels of cranial hyperossification) and life history (e.g. different reproductive modes, chemical defences), have a wide distribution, and occupy habitats from the tropical rainfore...

We studied the morphology, development, and the terminology of a lobe over the iris present in three genera of South American cycloramphid frogs (Cycloramphus, Thoropa, and Zachaenus). This research is based on dissections and a macroscopic survey of the eyes of tadpoles, post-metamorphosed, and adults of all six species of Thoropa, nine species of...

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O estudo da anatomia dos animais remonta aos primórdios da ciência e persiste até os dias atuais. A anatomia comparada é utilizada como evidência de evolução, auxiliando na classificação dos organismos, reconstrução da história filogenética das espécies, dedução dos padrões ancestrais, e definição dos processos e padrões que geram e mantém a divers...

Anuran malformations are rarely reported to occur with high frequencies in natural populations. However, there is consensus that they can be caused by several factors. Herein, we report malformations in Rhinella ornata toads from land-bridge islands and compare their frequency with those of mainland populations from Rio de Janeiro. All islands show...

Micro-CT is the most powerful 3D imaging technique to study morphology of the small animals, such as annelids, insects and amphibian embryos. Commercial lab-based X-ray micro-CT system is the most used to study anurans, however it presents some limitation when compared with synchrotron micro-CT techniques that offers significant advantages over suc...

Based on concordant differences in male advertisement call, tadpole morphology, and absence of haplotype sharing in the barcoding 16S mitochondrial DNA, we describe here a new species of spotted leaf frog of the genus Phasmahyla from Atlantic Forest, State of Rio de Janeiro, Southeast Brazil. The new species is most similar to P. cochranae (type lo...

Based on concordant differences in male advertisement call, tadpole morphology, and absence of haplotype sharing in the barcoding 16S mitochondrial DNA, we describe here a new species of spotted leaf frog of the genus Phasmahyla from Atlantic Forest, State of Rio de Janeiro, Southeast Brazil. The new species is most similar to P. cochranae (type lo...

Document S1. List of sequences from GenBank used in this study (16S rRNA).

Document S2. Uncorrected p-distances for a 331-bp aligned sequence of the 16S rRNA gene of the new species, 21 samples of other Phasmahyla species, one sample of Boana species and four samples of Phyllomedusa species taken from GenBank (see Document S1).

Figure S1. Calcar appendages from all eight species of Phasmahyla. a) P. cochranae (UFMG-AMP 1564); b) P. cruzi (CFBH 39151); c) P. exilis (CFBH 4022); d) P. guttata (CFBH 05704); e) P. jandaia (UFMG-AMP 19641); f) P. lisbella sp. nov. (ZUFMS-AMP 08803, holotype); g) P. spectabilis (MZUESC 16616); h) P. timbo (MZUESC 16609, topotype). Image credit/...

Document S3. Sequences of the two paratypes of Phasmahyla lisbella sp. nov.

In this work, in-line phase-contrast synchrotron microtomography was used in order to study the external and internal morphology of Thoropa miliaris tadpoles. Whole-specimens of T. miliaris in larval stages of development 28, 37 and 42, collected in the municipality of Mangaratiba (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) were used for the study. The samples were s...

The relationship between argasid ticks and cycloramphid frogs has only recently been described together with the description of new species of ticks, as is the case of Ornithodoros saraivai Muñoz-Leal & Labruna 2017. The type host of this recently described species is the rock frog, Cycloramphus boraceiensis Heyer, 1983. The basic knowledge regardi...

Island Rule postulated that individuals on islands tend to dwarfism when individuals from mainland populations are large and to gigantism when mainland populations present small individuals. There has been much discussion about this rule, but only few studies were carried out aiming to reveal this pattern for anurans. Our study focused on measuring...

PCA summary. Loadings of the first five principal componentes of the PCA with proportion of variance (PoV—%) and cumulative proportion of variance (CpoV—%). (DOCX)

Examined material. List of specimens examined available in the Laboratório de Herpetologia da Universidade Federal Rural do Rio de Janeiro and in the Coleção de Herpetologia do Museu Nacional do Rio de Janeiro. (DOCX)

Two different perspectives guide ontogenetic studies. On one hand, there is a concern with objective processes and the understanding of the underlying mechanisms that governed the appearance of morphological differences between taxa; on the other hand, there are similarities between ontogenetic patterns that are used as phylogenetic characters. One...

Thoropa miliaris is a frog species endemic to the Brazilian Atlantic Rainforest, inhabiting wet rocky habitats. Males of this species present nuptial excrescences, which are keratinized spines on the surface of some fingers and internal metacarpal tubercles. Although these spines are usually associated with male adulthood, no details of their devel...

Ornithodoros faccinii Barros-Battesti, Landulfo & Luz 2015, a recently described species of soft tick, was collected from Thoropa miliaris (Spix, 1824), an amphibian of the family Cycloramphidae, in the municipality of Itaguaí, in the state of Rio de Janeiro. Primary aspects of the ecology of O. faccinii and its relationship with T. miliaris are st...

Pipa is a Neotropical genus of frogs that dwell in freshwater environments. It includes four species that lack free-swimming larvae (P. aspera, P. arrabali, P. pipa, and P. snethlageae) and three with tadpoles (P. carvalhoi, P. myersi, and P. parva). Developmental tables such as the one proposed by Nieuwkoop and Faber might be useful for Pipa speci...

The literature regarding the type series of Scinax perpusillus (Lutz & Lutz, 1939) presents two distinct numbers for the holotype. In 1973, thirty-four years after the description, Bertha Lutz associated numbers to the type series. This numbering has been followed by subsequent reviewers of Scinax ever since, with exception of Peixoto (1987) who as...

Islands are natural laboratories for evolutionary studies due to their small areas, structural complexity (compared to continents), and their different degrees of isolation. The present study involved four distinct areas, one continental and three insular, on the southern coast of the State of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. These islands were formed by co...

Tropidurus Wied, 1825, is one of the most ubiquitous lizard genera distributed in open habitats of tropical and subtropical South America. Nevertheless, the broad representation of specimens of this group in scientific collections is hardly reflected in our knowledge of its taxo- nomic diversity. Most species currently assigned to Tropidurus began...

The largest anuran diversity belongs to the Neobatrachia, which harbor more than five thousand extant species. Here, we propose a new hypothesis for the historical aspects of the neobatrachian evolution with a formal biogeographical analysis. We selected 12 genes for 144 neobatrachian genera and four archaeobatrachian outgroups and performed a phyl...

Since Scinax arduous description, many other populations belonging to the Scinax perpusillus group have been recorded for the States of Espírito Santo and Minas Gerais, Southeastern Brazil. Both in collections and publications most of these new specimens are identified as S. arduous, Scinax cf. arduous, Scinax cf. perpusillus, Scinax gr. perpusillu...

Egg-brooding frogs (Hemiphractidae) are a group of 105 currently recognized Neotropical species, with a remarkable diversity of developmental modes, from direct development to free-living and exotrophic tadpoles. Females carry their eggs on the back and embryos have unique bell-shaped gills. We inferred the evolutionary relationships of these frogs...

We sampled ticks from specimens of the rococo toad Rhinella schneideri by flannel dragging on two Islands located in the São Francisco River near the Três Marias hydroelectric dam, southeastern Brazil. A total of 120 toads was examined, of which 63 (52.5%) were parasitized only by Amblyomma rotundatum totaling 96 larvae, 163 nymphs and 134 females....

We investigate the composition of anuran communities of land-bridge islands off the southeastern coast of Brazil. These islands provide natural long-term experiments on the effects of fragmentation in the Brazilian Atlantic Forest (BAF). We hypothesize that Pleistocene sea-level changes, in combination with other abiotic variables such as area and...

Listed as Data Deficient since it has only recently been described, and there is still very little information on its extent of occurrence, status and ecological requirements.

Direct development is an atypical reproductive mode in anurans characterized by the loss of a morphologically distinct, free­swimming tadpole, and embryos are borne as miniature adults. Pipa, a Neotropical genus of aquatic frogs of the Family Pipidae, includes four species that lack free-living larvae. Tadpoles of the three biphasically developing...

The hylid frog Scinax perpusillus species group comprises 13 species that share, in addition to a few morphological features, reproduction that occurs exclusively associated with bromeliads. Among the species in the group, Scinax v-signatus (Lutz, 1968) is one of the few with a relatively large geographic distribution, occurring in association with...

The life cycle and behavior of Amblyomma rotundatum were evaluated under laboratory conditions. The experiment started with four engorged females collected from toads (Rhinella schneideri) naturally infested at the Pirapitinga Ecological Station in the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil. Developmental periods of free-living stages were assessed in an in...

A new anuran species, Cycloramphus lithomimeticus sp. nov., of the C. granulosus species group is described from the Municipality of Itaguaí, in the State of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (22°54'3.44"S; 43°53'34.59"W, 160 m). The new species is distinguished from all other species in the C. granulosus group (and many others in the genus) by lacking inguin...

Darwin and Wallace, in the mid-nineteenth century, were the first to document examples of natural selection acting on island dwellers. A century later a pattern of morphological differences among organisms on islands was coined the ‘island rule’, which states that on islands species with small individuals tend toward gigantism and large individuals...

Na expectativa de empregar uma alternativa que proporcione o conteúdo mais atrativo para os alunos do ensino fundamental, desenvolvemos a história em quadrinhos abordando o tema “Biodiversidade invisível”. O tema do trabalho foi proposto para o Nepe II - Núcleo de Ensino, Pesquisa e Extensão II. Uma proposta da grade curricular de Licenciatura em C...

Caryophylliidae Dana, 1846 and Dendrophylliidae Gray, 1847 are families of widespread hard corals (order Scleractinia) composed mainly of azooxanthellate corals. A growing body of molecular data has provided new insights on hard-coral evolution, suggesting that many of the traditionally recognized families are not monophyletic. The morphology of th...

A new species, Scinax insperatus sp. nov., of the S. perpusillus group is described based on specimens collected in the Municipality of Miguel Pereira, State of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (22° 13' 14.6" S and 43° 26' 02.1" W). The new species is easily distinguishable from all other species of the S. perpusillus group, except Scinax belloni Faivovich,...

Among vertebrates, anuran amphibians represent the highest number of species associated with bromeliads and possess a range of ecological, behavioral, and morphological specializations to life in these plants. Despite the importance of bromeliads as biodiversity amplifiers, and their diversity in some habitats, studies of the relationship between a...

We describe the extra bony elements, plates, and osteoderms present in species of the genus Brachycephalus. Samples of eight species of Brachycephalus, including seven populations of Brachycephalus ephippium, were examined. The large additional elements associated with the skull (parotic plate) and vertebrae (vertebral and paravertebral plates) all...

Amphibian antimicrobial peptides have been known for many decades and several of them have already been isolated. However, the number of species investigated is still small. Herein, we report on the skin secretions of Leptodactylus ocellatus, which were extracted by mild electrical stimulation and its semi-preparative reverse-phase chromatography w...

Several aspects of the reproductive behaviour of species of the Scinax perpusillus group (S. perpusillus, S. v‐signatus, S. littoreus, and three other not yet described species) obtained from direct field observations and nocturnal video filming are presented and evaluated. Males of the observed species have behavioural characters, including aspect...

We report the results of a seven-year survey of the anurans of Marambaia, in the State of Rio de Janeiro, southeastern Brazil, where 24 species were recorded. The species represented nine families: Hylidae (10 species), Bufonidae (3), Leptodactylidae (3), Hylodidae (2), Microhylidae (2), Craugastoridae (1), Centrolenidae (1), Cycloramphidae (1), an...

We describe a new bromeligenous species of Scinax from the perpusillus group from the Atlantic Forest of the State of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The new species is described from three different localities, two on the continent (Municipality of Mangaratiba), and the other on an island, Gipóia (Municipality of Angra dos Reis). The new species may be ea...

We describe a new bromeligenous species of Scinax from the perpusillus group from the Atlantic Forest of the State of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The new species is described from three different localities, two on the continent (Municipality of Mangaratiba), and the other on an island, Gipóia (Municipality of Angra dos Reis). The new species may be ea...

Descrevemos uma nova espécie de Hylodes da Serra Negra, Município de Santa Bárbara do Monte Verde, Minas Gerais, sudeste do Brasil. A nova espécie pertence ao grupo Hylodes lateristrigatus, apresentando as seguintes características distintivas: corpo pequeno, focinho truncado em vistas dorsal e lateral, escudos da superfície dorsal dos discos dos d...

We describe a new species of Hylodes Fitzinger, 1826 from Serra Negra, Municipality of Santa Barbara do Monte Verde, State of Minas Gerais, southeastern Brazil. The new species is a member of the Hylodes lateristrigatus group, characterized by the following combination of traits: small size, snout truncated in dorsal and in lateral views, upper sur...

FIGURE 4. Scinax tupinamba sp. nov. Tadpole stage 27. (A) Dorsal view of the body, (B) detail of the venter showing the intestinal coil and vent opening, (C) detail of the mouth showing the papillae and keratodonts, and (D) stage 39, tail showing dark pigmentation on lower fin.

FIGURE 1. Scinax tupinamba sp. nov. (Holotype). (A) Dorsal and (B) ventral views.

FIGURE 2. Scinax tupinamba sp. nov. (Holotype). Ventral views of right (A) hand and (B) foot.

FIGURE 5. Map of the State of Rio de Janeiro with enlarged detail of the location for the 3 collecting sites for Scinax tupinamba sp. nov.

FIGURE 3. Scinax tupinamba sp. nov. (Holotype). (A) Ventral view of gular region and (B) lateral view of the head.

This work presents the results of a survey of the lizard species that occur in Marambaia, RJ. Twelve species of lizards, distributed in seven families were registered. Teiidae is the richest family (3 spp.), followed by Gekkonidae (2), Scincidae (2), Tropiduridae (2), Gymnophthalmidae (1), Leiosauridae (1), and Polychrotidae (1). The lizard fauna o...

A calcified pseudodontoid in the mandibular symphysis of Leptodactylus troglodytes was described from fresh, macerated, and cleared/double-stained preparations. Histology confirmed that the pseudodontoid was mineralized and composed of fibrocartilage. This structure was found in all specimens of both sexes, suggesting a role in either prey capture...

We surveyed the morphology of the auditory region of members of the anuran genus Brachycephalus. The sample included seven of the eleven known species; in addition, Brachycephalus ephippium and B. vertebralis were each represented by several specimens from different localities. All species lack a tympanum, tympanic annulus, stapes, and Eustachian t...

We compared the effects of habitat disturbance on the feeding ecology of two local populations of Tropidurus torquatus (Wied, 1820) in restinga habitats on Ilha da Marambaia, Southeastern Brazil. Both populations presented a relatively diverse diet and differ in the number (DMax = 0.22, DF = 2, p = 0.00) and volume of prey consumed (DMax = 0.82, DF...

Este estudo apresenta os resultados de um inventário da fauna de lagartos da Marambaia, RJ. Foram registradas 12 espécies de lagartos, distribuídas em sete famílias. Teiidae é a família mais rica (3 spp.), seguida por Gekkonidae (2), Scincidae (2), e Tropiduridae (2), Gymnophthalmidae (1), Leiosauridae (1) e Polychrotidae (1). A composição da comun...

This study concerns the patterns of parasitism by the larvae of Eutrombicula alfreddugesi (Oudemans, 1910) on three species of Tropidurus Wied, 1820 from Cerrado habitats of Central Brazil: T. oreadicus Rodrigues, 1987 (n= 97), T. itambere (n = 85) and T. torquatus (Wied, 1820) (two samples n = 75, n = 23). The highest prevalence value was observed...

This paper presents the results of a 22-month survey and the examination of the intestinal content of 356 specimens of Xenohyla truncata (Anura: Hylidae) from Restinga de Maricá, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Our results confirm prior observations that fruits are intrinsic to the diet of these frogs. In addition, these new data increase our understanding...

Stopping further global losses of amphibian populations and species requires an unprecedented conservation response.

Esse trabalho documenta a presença de cascavéis, como invasoras, em municípios do Estado do Rio de Janeiro. Conforme registros anteriores, essas cobras muito provavelmente invadiram pelo menos o município de Valença carreadas durante enchentes que ocorreram entre as décadas de 1950 e 1960. No novo ambiente, ao longo da margem do Rio Preto, essas co...

A new species of the Chthonerpeton indistinctum group is described from Brazil based on fourteen specimens collected in the Municipality of Conde, State of Bahia. The new species is characterized by 94–103 primary annuli, 100–108 vertebrae, tentacular aperture closer to nares than to eyes, umpigmented cloacal disk and narial plug areas, and by the...

Silva, Hélio Ricardo Da, Britto-Pereira, Mônica Cox De, Caramaschi, Ulisses (2003): A new species of Chthonerpeton (Amphibia: Gymnophiona: Typhlonectidae) from Bahia, Brazil. Zootaxa 381: 1-11, DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.156280

We reassess the phylogenetic relationships among the species of the neotropical genus Hemiphractus (Hylidae: Hemiphractinae), including a species only recently described. Parsimony analysis of 48 morphological and behavioral characters resulted in a single most parsimonious tree; ((H. helioi (H. sattatus, H. fasciatus)) (H. johnsoni (H. bubalus, H....