Pedro Peloso

Federal University of Pará | UFPA · Institute of Biological Sciences (ICB)

Many anuran species remain to be formally named and described in Amazonia, notably in the Guiana Shield, and particularly in megadiverse groups such as Pristimantis. Several species in the Guiana Shield region have been confused with Pristi- mantis marmoratus and P. ockendeni. Hylodes grandoculis, a taxon previously placed in the synonymy of P. mar...

A new escape behavior was recorded for the scansorial arboreal Amazonian lizard Plica plica. We report for the first time the escape behavior of diving, remaining submerged and motionless, and the cessation of breathing, which increases the number of known defensive mechanisms for this species.

The genus Synapturanus includes three nominal species of fossorial Amazonian frogs. A previous study combining molecular, morphological and acoustic data suggested that there may be six times more species than currently recognized. Herein we describe and name three of these new species and compare their osteology. Synapturanus zombie sp. nov. occur...

A large proportion of the biodiversity of Amazonia, one of the most diverse rainforest areas in the world, is yet to be formally described. One such case is the Neotropical frog genus Adenomera. We here evaluate the species richness and historical biogeography of the Adenomera heyeri clade by integrating molecular phylogenetic and species delimitat...

The outstanding biodiversity of the Guiana Shield has raised many questions about its origins and evolution. Frogs of the genera Adelastes, Otophryne and Synapturanus form an ancient lineage distributed mostly across this region. These genera display strikingly disparate morphologies and life-history traits. Notably, Synapturanus is conspicuously a...

Molecular phylogenies have yielded strong support for many parts of the amphibian Tree of Life, but poor support for the resolution of deeper nodes, including relationships among families and orders. To clarify these relationships, we provide a phylogenomic perspective on amphibian relationships by developing a taxon-specific Anchored Hybrid Enrich...

The relationships of the hyline tribe Dendropsophini remain poorly studied, with most published analyses dealing with few of the species groups of Dendropsophus. In order to test the monophyly of Dendropsophini, its genera, and the species groups currently recognized in Dendropsophus, we performed a total evidence phylogenetic analysis. The molecul...

Alopoglossidae is a family of Neotropical lizards composed of 23 species allocated in two genera (Alopoglossus and Ptychoglossus). There is a lack of knowledge about the phylogenetic relationships and systematics of this family. Published phylogenies that include alopoglossid species have very low taxon coverage within the family, and are usually b...

General consensus emphasizes that no single biological process can explain the patterns of species' distributions and diversification in the Neotropics. Instead, the interplay of several processes across space and time must be taken into account. Here we investigated the phylogenetic relationships and biogeographic history of tree frogs in the Dend...

Elachistocleis is a Neotropical genus of microhylid frogs with 18 species, most of which occur east of the Andes in South America. Here, we present a new phylogeny of Gastrophryninae and describe and name a new species of Elachistocleis from southern Ecuador-the first to be found west of the Andes and also the first from Ecuador. Our phylogeny is b...

Molecular phylogenies have yielded strong support for many parts of the amphibian Tree of Life, but poor support for the resolution of deeper nodes, including relationships among families and orders. To clarify these relationships, we provide a phylogenomic perspective on amphibian relationships by developing a taxon-specific Anchored Hybrid Enrich...

Expeditions to unexplored or little explored places are important for discovering new species and also for collecting new samples (including specimens and tissues for DNA sequencing ) that may help resolve a plethora of taxonomic problems. In the 19th century, several naturalists explored a number of localities in Amazonia, describing species for w...

Few studies have focused on the diverse fauna of southwestern Brazilian Amazonia. This region, spared from large-scale human occupation until the second half of the twentieth century, has been threatened by expanding agriculture, logging, and mining. Here, we describe a new nurse frog (Allobates, Aromobatidae) from the open highland habitats of Ser...

Present Amazonian diversity patterns can result from many different mechanisms and, consequently, the factors contributing to divergence across regions and/or taxa may differ. Nevertheless, the river‐barrier hypothesis is still widely invoked as a causal process in divergence of Amazonian species. Here we use model‐based phylogeographic analyses to...

In recent years, major changes have been proposed for the phylogenetic relationships within the Gymnophthalmoidea, including the description of Alopoglossidae. Recent studies relied primarily on molecular data and have not accounted for evidence from alternative sources, such as morphology. In this study, we provide a detailed bone-by-bone descript...

Leptodactylid frogs are phenotypically diverse, widely distributed across the Neotropics, and are known to harbor high levels of cryptic species diversity. This is especially true in Adenomera, where several candidate species have been recognized in a genetics-based study. Here we describe a new Amazonian species of Adenomera, which corresponds to...

We describe and name the second species of Phyzelaphryne (Brachycephaloidea, Eleutherodactylidae), from northwestern Brazilian Amazonia. Phyzelaphryne nimio sp. nov. is distinguished from its only congener, Phyzelaphryne miriamae, by its smaller body size and the anatomy of the carpal and metacarpal regions, with relatively larger (sometimes fused)...

Gladiator Frogs (Boana) is a Neotropical group comprised of 92 species sorted into seven species groups. Herein, we present a phylogeny of the Boana semilineata species group, including all valid nominal species currently or suspected to be assigned to it- many sequenced for the first time. Parsimony and maximum likelihood analyses of two genes (16...

The integration of approaches that allow the incorporation of stochasticity of gene histories with phylogenetic methods resulted in new approaches for the old issue of species delimitation. Nevertheless, coalescent methods seem problematic for taxa with large effective population size and shallow temporal diversification (like marine fishes). Here,...

Nombre del expositor Presenter name Cristian Hernández-Morales Alopoglossidae is a recently erected family of Neotropical lizards that includes the genera Alopoglossus (seven named species) and Ptychoglossus (15 named species). This family is distributed from Costa Rica, through northern South America, both east and west of the Andes, and across Am...

We describe and name a new species of Alopoglossus (Gymnophthalmoidea: Alopoglossidae) from western Colombia (Departamentos Cauca and Valle del Cauca: Chocó biodiversity hotspot). The new taxon is morphologically similar to Alopoglossus festae and A. viridis, from which it differs in having, among other things: strongly keeled imbricated temporal s...

Amazonia harbors the largest and most diverse tropical forest in the world, but knowledge about the species diversity of the region is still far from ideal. Given this low level of faunal and floral knowledge, we present an annotated list of the species of amphibians and reptiles found in Floresta Nacional do Pau-Rosa (FNPR), along the Rio Paraconi...

The realization of inventories in regions where there are few records of amphibian collection is a fundamental tool for conservation. We studied the composition of amphibian species in swamps and lagoons of São Roque do Canaã, a municipality located in the central region of the state of Espírito Santo, Brazil. The study was conducted between June 2...

Peloso et al. (2015: PELOSO) published a comprehensive phylogenetic study of the frog family Microhylidae, which resulted in the discovery that several taxa were not monophyletic. To remedy this, a series of nomenclatural changes were proposed (several generic synonymies and two new subfamilies named). A recent study published in this journal by Sc...

The question whether taxonomic descriptions naming new animal species without type specimen(s) deposited in collections should be accepted for publication by scientific journals and allowed by the Code has already been discussed in Zootaxa (Dubois & Nemésio 2007; Donegan 2008, 2009; Nemésio 2009a–b; Dubois 2009; Gentile & Snell 2009; Minelli 2009;...

This plot is not part of the published stance but derives from it. The plot shows the number of authors by geographic region (courtesy of Dr. Diego Astua).

We describe a new species of Dendropsophus (Anura: Hylidae: Hylinae: Dendropsophini) from the Amazon river (= Rio Amazonas) basin, state of Amazonas, northern Brazil. The new taxon is included in the D. leucophyllatus group based on its phylogenetic position and on the presence of a pair of pectoral glands (a likely synapomorphy of the group). The...

The Leptolalax applebyi group of Asian leaf-litter frogs currently comprises four species of particularly small-bodied (<40mm SVL) species distributed in the Central Highlands of Vietnam and northeastern Cambodia. In addition to their small size, the group is characterized by their morphological and genetic similarities, as well as their breeding h...

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...

Despite considerable progress in unravelling the phylogenetic relationships of microhylid frogs, relationships among subfamilies remain largely unstable and many genera are not demonstrably monophyletic. Here, we used five alternative combinations of DNA sequence data (ranging from seven loci for 48 taxa to up to 73 loci for as many as 142 taxa) ge...

We describe Dendropsophus ozzyi sp. nov., a new species of treefrog, tentatively included in the Dendropsophus micro-cephalus Group and most notably diagnosed by the presence of pointed fingers and an advertisement call with a very high dominant frequency. The new species is known from three localities in the Brazilian Amazon forest, two on western...

A new species of the hylid genus Scinax is described and illustrated. The new taxon was found in the Amazonian rainforest of northern Brazil, municipalities of Maués and Careiro da Várzea, state of Amazonas. The new species is characterized by its moderate size (male mean snout-vent length 36.3mm); body robust; large, orange, black-bordered axillar...

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Morales and McDiarmid (2009) and Toledo (2010) described and named, respectively, Chiasmocleis supercilialbus and Elachistocleis magnus. We argue that the specific epithets of both names are discordant with the gender of their respective genera and need correction.

A new, riparian, species of Allobates Zimmermann and Zimmermann, 1988 (Anura: Aromobatidae) from southwestern Amazonia Abstract We describe Allobates flaviventris sp. nov., a medium-sized (SVL 16.7–19.7 mm in males; 19.3–21.1 mm in females) aro-mobatid frog with Finger III not swollen in adult males from eastern state of Acre, Brazil. It inhabits o...

We provide the first record of Chiasmocleis supercilialbus for Brazil. Thre especimens were collected at Seringal Etelvi, Reserva Extrativista Chico Mendes, state of Acre, Brazil. This record extends the distribution of the species 200 km east from the type locality situated at Manu National Park, Manu River, Departamento Madre de Dios, Peru.

We describe Allobates grillisimilis from the northwestern region of the Rio Madeira-Rio Tapajós interfluve, state of Am-azonas, Brazil. The new taxon is characterized by its small snout-to-vent length (12.8-16.0 mm, the smallest among known Allobates), by the color pattern of adults (surfaces of throat, chest and abdomen unpigmented), by morphologi...

The glossal skeleton in caecilians has been related to respira-tory and feeding functions (e.g., Bemis et al. 1983, O'Reilly 1990, Carrier & Wake 1995), although its function is still not fully understood (Wake 2003). The arrangement of the glossal skeleton, particularly the number and fusions of arches, has been used in taxonomic and phylo genetic...

We describe a new species of bufonid from a lowland, sandy soil, restinga habitat in the state of Espírito Santo, southeastern Brazil. Based on the shared occurrence of putative mor-phological synapomorphies of Melanophryniscus and the results of a phylogenetic analysis of DNA sequences of a broad sample of bufonids, and other anurans, we assign th...

We conducted a long-term amphibian survey at the biodiversity corridor Pedra Azul-Forno Grande, in the mountain region of the state of Espírito Santo, Brazil. Sampling was conducted from April 2004 to October 2009 and we registered 43 species. Two species (Dendropsophus ruschii and Megaelosia apuana) are included in the state list of threatened spe...

We present a list of the anuran amphibians of the state of Espírito Santo, southeastern Brazil. The list was compiled from data gathered from fieldwork over the course of the past 20 years in different localities, and from literature records and voucher specimens deposited in scientific collections. Our list comprises 133 species. Patchy sampling e...

This paper presents a review of the geographical distribution of Chiasmocleis albopunctata (Boettger, 1885), based on data from literature, scientific collections, and field notes. Our reviewing significantly enlarges the distribution of the species within the Brazilian territory, with new records for the states of Bahia, Maranhão, and Tocantins. A...

This paper presents a review of the geographical distribution of Chiasmocleis albopunctata (Boettger, 1885), based on data from literature, scientific collections, and field notes. Our reviewing significantly enlarges the distribution of the species within the Brazilian territory, with new records for the states of Bahia, Maranhao, and Tocantins. A...

Marinussaurus curupira, a new genus and species of Gymnophthalmidae lizard is described from Iranduba, state of Amazonas, Brazil. The genus is characterized by an elongate body; short and stout pentadactyl limbs; all digits clawed; single frontonasal; two prefrontals; absence of frontoparietals; interparietal and parietals forming a straight poster...

Chiasmocleis currently comprises 25 species distributed from Panama through most of northern and central South America east of the Andes (Frost 2010). Santana et al. (2009) summarized available literature data on the advertisement call of the 12 species of Chiasmocleis with calls described and observed inter and intraspecific variation in the calls...

Intra- and interpopulational variation in the morphology of Ptychoglossus brevifrontalis Boulenger, 1912 were studied. Differences in scale counts and morphometric traits among populations and between sexes are evaluated and described. Sexual dimorphism is evident in number of precloacal and femoral pores, and to a lesser degree in body elongation....

We present the first record of Urostrophus vautieri for the state of Espírito Santo and a distribution map forthe species. This species was previoulsy known from the states of Minas Gerais, Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, Paraná, SantaCatarina, and Rio Grande do Sul. The present record represent an extension of nearly 200 km to the North from the neares...

We record for the first time the presence of Chiasmocleis avilapiresae in the state of Acre, Brazil. This microhylidfrog is found throughout Amazon in Brazil and no information about its distribution in the Acre state was reported previously.An increase on sampling efforts, revision of material housed in herpetological collections, and use of diver...

The genus Phyllomedusa contains 32 species widespread in the Neotropics. Many species have a broad range, but Phyllomedusa atelopoides is apparently an exception. We found Phyllomedusa atelopoides in the state of Amazonas, Brazil. Herein, based on museum and literature records, we also provide new records of the species for Peru, an updated distrib...

A new species of microhylid frog of the genus Chiasmocleis from the Amazonian rainforest of northern Brazil, in the states of Amazonas, Mato Grosso, Para and Rondonia, is described and illustrated. The new species is characterized by the combination of: large size for the genus; robust body; finger I well developed; toe I developed; toes of males e...