Tamí Mott

• Federal University of Alagoas

In this unique and richly illustrated book, the reader will find information on the natural history of a wide tadpole' variety, of frogs, treefrogs and toads from all six Brazilian biomes. Starting with a basic description of the biology, collection methods and photographic recording, and the morphological characterization of tadpoles in general, i...

Morphological patterns may vary spatially in response to adaptations to regional environmental conditions. In fossorial animals, edaphic gradients potentially predict intra and interspecific morphological variation because they can limit dispersal and select morphotypes. We measured morphological traits of South American worm lizards, including thr...

Aspects of the biology and natural history of the endemic anuran Crossodactylus dantei remain unknown even almost 30 years since its description. In this study, we describe its larval stage, along with the advertisement and territorial calls, and assess its phylogenetic positioning based on a fragment of the 16S rRNA mitochondrial gene. The larval...

Aspects of the biology and natural history of the endemic anuran Crossodactylus dantei remain unknown even almost 30 years since its description. In this study, we describe its larval stage, along with the advertisement and territorial calls, and assess its phylogenetic positioning based on a fragment of the 16S rRNA mitochondrial gene. The larval...

Since one of priorities of public policies and conservation projects are aimed at biodiversity safeguarding, knowledge of the richness and distribution of amphibian communities becomes an important tool for defining priority areas for conservation. Herein, we provide a list of amphibians registered in the Estação Ecológica de Murici, state of Alago...

Sea turtles are migratory species with wide geographical distributions, usually spanning multiple countries. This characteristic , along with their complex life cycle, makes sea turtle conservation challenging. In Brazil, continued monitoring and recent studies have advanced the knowledge of sea turtle genetic composition and population structure....

The treefrog Boana exastis was tentatively included in B. faber group based on its morphological similarity to B. lundii and B. pardalis. This species was only recently included in a molecular phylogeny, confirming its placement in this group; however, its phylogenetic relationships have been poorly explored. Herein, we describe the larval external...

The Atlantic Forest is recognized as a global biodiversity hotspot, but despite the comparatively large number of published reptile inventories already available for this region, large geographic gaps remain unfilled. The purpose of this paper is to provide a list of reptile species recorded in the Área de Proteção Ambiental do Catolé e Fernão Velh...

The challenge in studying Neotropical tadpoles is identifying species using only their external morphology. However, the DNA barcode protocol is often implemented to help elucidate ta-xonomic issues. In fact, the identification of frogs through their unknown tadpoles has already been achieved accurately using this protocol. Despite the successful a...

Currently the Atlantic Forest hotspot has less than 11% of its original coverage. However approximately 300 species of reptiles are known to inhabit this ecoregion, of which 34% are endemic. The creation of protected areas represents a strategy for preserving ecosystems and managing land use, and for attaining the proper management of these protect...

The archipelago of Fernando de Noronha (FN) is located in the Equatorial South Atlantic Ocean, at 375 km off the northeastern coast of Brazil. Its endemic vertebrate land fauna is restricted to only six species, and three main hypotheses have been proposed to explain their presence in the archipelago. These hypotheses suggest FN had alternative bio...

We describe two new species of Brazilian geckos of the genus Phyllopezus based on morphological and molecular data. The first species is currently known from a relictual Cerrado enclave—“campos rupestres”, in the mountains of the Serra do Espinhaço in the state of Bahia. The second species is known from northeastern Atlantic Forest and transitional...

The process of species formation is characterised by the accumulation of multiple reproductive barriers. The evolution of hybrid male sterility, or Haldane’s rule, typically characterises later stages of species formation, when reproductive isolation is strongest. Yet, understanding how quickly reproductive barriers evolve and their consequences fo...

Although the process of species formation is notoriously idiosyncratic, the observation of pervasive patterns of reproductive isolation across species pairs suggests that generalities, or “rules”, underlie species formation in all animals. Haldane’s rule states that whenever a sex is absent, rare or sterile in a cross between two taxa, that sex is...

The identification of anuran amphibians is still a challenge in megadiverse assemblages. In the Neotropics, the Atlantic Forest harbors more than 600 anuran species, and many studies in this ecoregion report anuran assemblages surpassing 30 species. Taxonomic keys facilitate the identification of biological diversity, however only a few are availab...

Human overexploitation of natural resources has placed conservation and management as one of the most pressing challenges in modern societies, especially in regards to highly vulnerable marine ecosystems. In this context, cryptic species are particularly challenging to conserve because they are hard to distinguish based on morphology alone, and thu...

Species in the Adelophryne genus consist of diminutive, agile, and secretive frogs that inhabit forest leaf litter and have direct development. Species richness within Adelophryne was previously underestimated, and several new species have recently been described. Here, we describe a new species of Adelophryne from the Atlantic Forest in the Brazil...

Potential effects of climate change on living species are a widely debated topic. Species with temperature-dependent sex determination can be particularly impacted by warmer temperatures because unbalanced sex ratios could threaten population viability. In sea turtles, sex ratio estimates have highlighted the potential feminization of current popul...

The following list includes all recognized species of amphibians, known by vouchers or published information to occur within the political borders of Brazil (as of April 2021). Supra-generic taxonomy follows Frost (2021), as do most generic and species names. Other taxonomic decisions and species exclusions are explained below. All inclusions relat...

Here we add a new state record for Cercosaura olivacea in northeastern Brazil and new areas of occurrence in the state of Pernambuco and Sergipe, including the first record of this species in the Caatinga ecoregion. The new records fill a gap of more than 600 km in the distribution of this species on the east coast of Brazil and expand the geograph...

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...

The biodiversity crisis has had particularly harsh impacts on marine environments. However, there is still considerable uncertainty about how many species have been seriously impacted and the effectiveness of protection measures (e.g., marine protected areas or MPAs) due to high levels of cryptic species in many taxa. Here, we employ an integrative...

An integrative taxonomy approach is used to study the diversity of the Brazilian aquatic pipid frog Pipa carvalhoi, evaluating whether within this nominal species two or more lineages are evolving independently. To test these competing scenarios, we analysed morphological (tadpoles and adults), molecular (16S rRNA) and karyological data for up to 1...

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.

Information on basic aspects of the natural history of many snake species based on naturalistic observations is still scarce. Here we report Oxyrhopus petolarius, a medium-sized false coral snake with terrestrial habits, feeding on Ophiodes striatus, a medium-sized lizard with cylindrical and elongated body, with vestigial posterior limbs and absen...

The Neotropics host the highest number of species of the biological realms, but the roles of Pleistocene climatic oscillations and longstanding geographic barriers on the origins of this remarkable biodiversity remains debated. Here, we test the relative contribution of these evolutionary mechanisms on the genetic and phenotypic diversification of...

Although anuran tadpoles are widely distributed and abundant in tropical aquatic habitats, there is a lack of taxonomic keys for the Atlantic Forest. Herein, we developed a dichotomous key for identifying the tadpoles for all species with known larval phase and already recorded in the Atlantic Forest north of the São Francisco River. We analyzed di...

Abstract: Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) generates unique data sets that have the potential to identify and quantify trends in ecological processes that may be difficult to detect at lower temporal resolutions. Even though many LTER sites are within protected areas, they do not necessarily produce data that are well aligned with the objective...

ABSTRACT Anuran amphibians exhibit a great diversity of reproductive modes. The behaviors of laying eggs in the water or on terrestrial habitats involve different adaptations and terrestriality evolved independently in the group. Morphological differences between males and females and female fecundity are important traits related to the reproductiv...

Morphological conservatism among closely related species often results in incongruent taxonomic classification between studies, leading to disagreements about the inferred evolutionary history of the species. This is the case in Mugil fishes, where extreme morphologic conservatism contrasts with wide distributions and high genetic divergence. To un...

The Neotropical foam-nesting genus Leptodactylus Fitzinger is currently composed of 75 species (Frost 2019) divided into four monophyletic species groups (De Sá et al. 2014). The L. melanonotus species group includes 17 species delimited by five adult osteological character-states (De Sá et al. 2014). Leptodactylus natalensis Lutz is the only speci...

Over 600 species of amphibians occur in the Atlantic Forest, 80% of which are endemic. Among the eight recognized biogeographic regions of the Atlantic Forest, the Pernambuco Biogeographic Sub-Region, north of the São Francisco River, has been the most deforested and least studied. Here we provide a list of anuran amphibians from the Environmental...

Tadpoles have unique morphological diversity adapted to aquatic life. Although mostly restricted to water bodies, tadpoles are poorly known compared to their adult phase. In Brazil, which leads the world diversity of amphibians, only 60% of the species have their larval stage known. Here, our goal was to gather data from researches developed with t...

Pipidae is a clade of Anura that diverged relatively early from other frogs in the phylogeny of the group. Pipids have a unique combination of morphological features, some of which appear to represent a mix of adaptations to aquatic life and plesiomorphic characters of Anura. The present study describes the karyotype of Pipa carvalhoi Miranda-Ribei...

Boana atlantica was described based on morphological characters to acommodate populations from Bahia state, Brazil, previously referred to as B. punctata . However, its taxonomic validity is questionable due to inconsistencies in bioacoustic data. Here, we integrate molecular, cytogenetic and morphological data to re-evaluate the taxonomic status o...

Terrestrial reproduction has evolved at least 48 times in the evolutionary history of anurans. Most species in the genus Dendropsophus deposit eggs in water, but some, including Dendropsophus haddadi, lay terrestrial eggs. This species is restricted to the Atlantic forest in Brazil and herein, we describe its reproductive biology. Individuals were...

A third species of Brasilotyphlus, a siphonopid caecilian, is described based on six specimens from two twin mountains in Roraima state, northern Brazil. Brasilotyphlus dubium sp. nov. differs from all other congeners in having a combination of 123–129 primary annuli and 9–16 secondary annular grooves. The first molecular data were generated and an...

Amphisbaena bahiana was described by Vanzolini in 1964 on the basis of a single specimen from Villa Nova municipality (now Senhor do Bonfim), Bahia state, Brazil. The holotype was obtained approximately 100 years ago, and only three additional specimens have been mentioned in the literature subsequently. We report two additional specimens of A. bah...

A new species of Amphisbaena from the Espinhaço Mountain Range in Bahia State is described based on morphological and molecular data. Amphisbaena caetitensis sp nov. is a small four-pored amphisbaenian with 186–194 body annuli, 10–12 tail annuli, 16 dorsal and 19–22 ventral segments on a midbody annulus and a strikingly distinctive tail tip. The mo...

Herein, we provide external and internal morphological data of Scinax skuki tadpoles from its type locality. The benthic tadpole of S. skuki has eyes and nostrils positioned dorsally, vent tube dextral and reaching the free margin of the ventral fin, oral disk ventral with posterior margin concave when partially closed, labial tooth row formula 2/3...

Gametogenesis studies are important to understand ecological and evolutionary processes. We report the first detailed description of spermatogenesis in amphisbaenians and describe the morphology of the male germ cells of Amphisbaena silvestrii and the organization of the germinal epithelium. We sampled the testes of 25 specimens and cut 3-lm thick...

The chytrid fungus Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd) has been identified as a major threat to several amphibian populations in tropical forests. Amphibians that inhabit the phytotelmata (water tanks) of bromeliads may be especially at risk of Bd infection since the humid, environmentally buffered microhabitat that they prefer might also be favora...

To date, 22 species of amphisbaenids have been recorded at Brazilian Amazon (Ribeiro et al. 2008), six of them are small and have two pre-cloacal pores (Hoogmoed & Ávila-Pires 1991; Teixeira Jr. et al. 2014). Most of these species have narrow distributions, and its biology and phylogenetic relationships are poorly understood (Hoogmoed & Ávila-Pires...

Worm lizards remain one of the least known groups of vertebrates, hindering a proper assessment of their levels of threat, especially in tropical regions where worm lizard diversity is highest and habitat destruction is rampant. We examine trends in description dates, conservation status and their correlations with body and range size, and conduct...

The Tropical Southwestern Atlantic is characterized by prominent ecosystems with large-scale oceanographic complexity. Yet, the evolutionary processes underlying genetic differentiation and connectivity in this region remain largely unknown. Entomacrodus vomerinus (Valenciennes, 1836) is a demersal fish with planktonic larvae endemic to this marine...

Bayesian Skyline Plot of the North ESU (SS), Central ESU (FE+RA) and Coastal ESU (RN+BA) of Entomacrodus vomerinus individuals. (TIF)

Entomacrodus vomerinus specimens included in this study, sampling site, geographic coordinates and sequence accession number. (DOCX)

Analysis of Molecular Variance (AMOVA) of Entomacrodus vomerinus. (DOCX)

Alagoas State is located in the northeast Brazil and was originally covered by Atlantic Forest and Caatinga. Nowadays, only small fragments of these two biomes remain mainly due to agricultural and pasture expansion. A few studies on amphibians in this area were conducted and a comprehensive species list is lacking precluding conservation strategie...

Siphonops paulensis Boettger, 1892 is a Neotropical siphonopid caecilian widely distributed in South America. Herein, we fill knowledge gaps in the distribution of S. paulensis mostly in northeastern Brazil, including four new state records.

The aquatic pathogen Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd) can cause declines in amphibian populations and species extinctions worldwide. In tadpoles, epizootic events have not been reported; however, there is a possibility for rapid spread of disease in water. Here, we quantified Bd infection dynamics in tadpoles from two streams in the northeastern...

The Neotropical gecko genus Coleodactylus Parker 1926 was, until recently, composed of five species: C. amazonicus (Andersson 1918), C. brachystoma (Amaral 1935), C. meridionalis (Boulenger 1888), C. natalensis Freire 1999, and C. septentrionalis Vanzolini 1980 (Geurgas et al. 2008). However, several phylogenetic analyses recovered a polyphyletic C...

ABSTRACT: The fungus Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd) is one of the main causes of declines in amphibian populations. This fungus is a generalist pathogen because it infects several species and spreads rapidly in the wild. To date, Bd has been detected in more than 100 anuran species in Brazil, mostly in the southern portion of the Atlantic fore...

Two independent surveys of yeasts associated with different bromeliads in different Brazilian regions led to the proposal of a novel yeast species, Bullera vrieseae, belonging to the Tremellales clade (Agaricomycotina, Basidiomycota). Analysis of the sequences of the ITS region and D1/D2 domain of the LSU rRNA gene suggested affinity to a phylogene...

Despite the increase in herpetofaunal inventories in the Caatinga biome, information for many areas is still lacking and new surveys are required. We conducted a 30-day inventory of the herpetofauna of the Catimbau National Park, Pernambuco State, Brazil. Thirty-seven pitfall trap arrays composed of 4 buckets each, along with glue traps and active...

Amphisbaena nigricauda Gans, 1966 is a small, poorly known amphisbaenid endemic to the restinga of the states of Espirito Santo and Bahia, Brazil. We analyze 178 specimens collected in Vitoria municipality, state of Espirito Santo, Brazil, to investigate whether this species show sexual dimorphism in pre-cloacal pores and in morphological character...

The genus Odontophrynus consists of 11 species of medium-sized frogs distributed across south and east South America. This study examines and describes the chondrocrania and oral cavities of O. americanus, O. maisuma, O. carvalhoi, and O. cultripes, and review current knowledge about the larval external morphology of the genus. Twenty-one tadpoles...

Amphibian declines have been reported worldwide and pesticides can negatively impact this taxonomic group. Brazil is the world’s largest consumer of pesticides, and Mato Grosso is the leader in pesticide consumption among Brazilian states. However, the effects of these chemicals on the biota are still poorly explored. The main goals of this study w...

Reproductive aspects of Ameerega braccata, a Cerrado endemic species of Dendrobatidae, were studied in the surroundings of the type locality of the species, Chapada dos Guimarães, mid-southern Mato Grosso State, Brazil. We found that males call mainly early in the morning and in the late afternoon. During courtship, the female approaches a calling...

The pathogenic chytrid fungus Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis threatens the amphibian diversity at global scale. Three different strains of B. dendrobatidis have been already found in Brazil, the country with the greatest diversity of anurans worldwide, and it is widely spread in the Atlantic rainforest. Here, we report the occurrence of B. dendroba...

Effective and targeted conservation action requires detailed information about species, their distribution, systematics and ecology as well as the distribution of threat processes which affect them. Knowledge of reptilian diversity remains surprisingly disparate, and innovative means of gaining rapid insight into the status of reptiles are needed i...

Brazil has a fundamental role in amphibian conservation, harboring the highest amphibian species richness in the world and a large number of endemics. Here, we present an overview of the Brazilian Amphibian Conser-vation Action Plan (BACAP), which is still being developed by Brazilian herpetologists. Basic research ¢ particularly species inventorie...

This study sought to analyze groundwater and rainwater contamination by pesticides in two municipalities (Lucas do Rio Verde and Campo Verde) of Mato Grosso state. The area is Brazil's mid-west situated among the major soybean, corn and cotton producers in the state and the country. The analytical methodology combined chromatographic techniques on...

This study sought to analyze groundwater and rainwater contamination by pesticides in two municipalities (Lucas do Rio Verde and Campo Verde) of Mato Grosso state. The area is Brazil's mid-west situated among the major soybean, corn and cotton producers in the state and the country. The analytical methodology combined chromatographic techniques on...

The geographical distribution of Luetkenotyphlus brasiliensis is reviewed based on data from the literature and examination of specimens recently collected in Brazil. We also provide new information on variation of the vomerine diastema, and meristic and morphometric data for L. brasiliensis based on Brazilian specimens.

In the Pantanal, the largest continuous floodplain in the world, the diversity and distribution of anuran amphibians vary in and across distinct subregions and distinct habitats occurring along inundation gradients. Permanent and natural aquatic habitats are relatively scarce in the Pantanal, and occurrence of temporary aquatic habitats varies seas...

The present study provides the distribution map and reports new records of the gymnophthalmid lizard Leposoma osvaldoi Avila-Pires , 1995, from Mato Grosso state, Brazil, extending the known geographical distribution of the species ca. 42 km northeastern in straight line from the nearest record in the state.

Amphisbaena miringoera Vanzolini, 1971 is very small and slender amphisbaenid known, up to now, from five specimens obtained in Porto Velho, Rio Tapirapés, state of Mato Grosso, Brazil. Herein we report nine additional specimens (six females and three males) recently collected at Floresta Nacional de Carajás, Parauapebas municipality, state of Pará...

described as a new species Amphisbaena uroxena, characterized among other features by the presence of conic tubercles concentrated in a circle on the dorsal surface of the tail, an unique feature among South American amphisbaenids. At that time, based only on the three specimens of the type series, all without precloacal pores, they speculated that...

Morphological variation and geographical distribution of Luetkenotyphlus brasiliensis (Gymnophiona: Siphonopidae). The geographical distribution of Luetkenotyphlus brasiliensis is reviewed based on data from the literature and examination of specimens recently collected in Brazil. We also provide new information on variation of the vomerine diastem...

A new species of Amphisbaena is described from Fazenda Caraibas, municipality of Mucugê, state of Bahia, Brazil, in the northern portion of the Serra do Espinhaço. The new species is a small amphisbaenian without precloacal pores, 210–213 body annuli, 12–13 tail annuli without evident autotomic site, and 14 dorsal and 14–15 ventral segments per ann...