Snakes are sold in many markets and religious article stores in Brazil. Besides their use as food, snakes are exploited in a variety of ways, such as pets, or for use in traditional medicine and magic/religious rituals (especially in Afro-Brazilian religions). Despite widespread commercialization, there is a general lack of information about this snake trade, which makes it difficult to evaluate its magnitude and its impact on reptile populations. This work documents the commercialization and use of snakes in five cities in Northeastern (Sã o Luís, Teresina, Joã o Pessoa and Campina Grande) and Northern (Belé m) Brazil, through interviews with 119 merchants of biological products in outdoor markets and religious articles stores. The data was gathered through the use of semi-structured questionnaires, complemented by semidirected interviews. The products derived from 11 snake species were being commercialized for medicinal or magical/religious purposes. Boa constrictor, Crotalus durissus and Eunectes murinus were the species most commonly sold. The economic importance of snakes as sources of medicines and religious products demonstrates the need for the development of sustainable use programs for these species.

The variety of interactions between human cultures and herpetofauna is the subject matter of Ethnoherpetology, a subdivision of Ethnozoology. In the semi-arid region of Brazil, many reptiles interact with human communities because of their utility or because of the risks they represent. These interactions have obvious implications for the conservation of reptiles from this region.In this context, ethnoherpetology studies are crucial because they serve as subsidies for guiding strategies for the handling and conservation of reptiles. This paper presents ethnozoological and taxonomic informations of hunted reptiles in the semiarid region of Brazil and analyse the implications on conservation that are related to the interactions between people and reptiles in this region. Taxonomic keys to identifying recorded reptiles are provided. Records of humans interacting with 38 reptile species that belong to 31 genuses and 16 families have been found. The groups with the largest numbers of recorded species were snakes (18 species), and this group was followed in number by lizards (13), chelonians (4), and crocodilians (3). The reptiles that were recorded may be used for the following purposes: medicinal purposes (24 species), food (13 species), ornamental or decorative purposes (11 species), in magical/religious practices (10 species), and as pets (10 species). Some species (n = 16) may have multiple uses. Furthermore, more than half of the species (n = 19) are commonly killed because they are considered potentially dangerous. Strategies for conserving the reptiles of the Brazilian semi-arid region must reconcile and integrate human and conservation needs.

Abstract:The Atlantic Forest is one of the priority areas for conservation in the world, since exhibits an overwhelming biodiversity of species. Among this biome stands the biogeographic unit located north of San Francisco River, which extends from the state of Alagoas to Rio Grande do Norte. On this portion of Atlantic Forest some isolated fragments of humid forests can be found, inserted in the arid Caatinga, known as Brejos de Altitude or Brejos Nordestinos. There is a total of 43 Brejos distributed in the states of Ceará, Rio Grande do Norte, Paraíba and Pernambuco and with the exception of some humid enclaves in the state of Ceará, the snake fauna of these areas are poorly known. Thus, our aim is to evaluate the current status of the snakes that inhabited these areas present on Paraíba and Pernambuco states, furnishing a preliminary list of the species housed on two representative collections concerning this region, Museu de Zoologia da Universidade de São Paulo (MZUSP) and Universidade Federal da Paraíba (UFPB). As a result, we recorded 27 species of snakes showing that this composition includes species primarily distributed in forest and open areas and also species widely distributed in different kind of biomes. We also stated that due to the present deforestation and the use of these areas for agricultural purposes the knowledge of its biodiversity is imperative, especially to generate information that will enable future management and conservation plans for these areas. Resumo: A Floresta Atlântica é uma das principais prioridades para conservação no mundo apresentando uma alta riqueza e biodiversidade de espécies. Dentre as diversas feições deste bioma destaca-se a unidade biogeográfica localizada ao norte do Rio São Francisco, que se estende do Estado de Alagoas até Rio Grande do Norte. Nessa porção de Floresta Atlântica são encontrados fragmentos isolados de matas úmidas, inseridos meio a região árida da Caatinga, conhecidos como Brejos de Altitude ou Brejos Nordestinos. São 43 enclaves distribuídos nos estados do Ceará, Rio Grande do Norte, Paraíba e Pernambuco. Com exceção de alguns brejos situados no Ceará, a fauna de serpentes destes enclaves é pobremente conhecida, especialmente nos estados da Paraíba e Pernambuco. Desta forma, este trabalho teve por propósito avaliar o status atual do conhecimento das serpentes que habitam estas áreas de brejos nos estados da Paraíba e Pernambuco, fornecendo uma lista baseada em dados de duas coleções herpetológicas, Universidade Federal da Paraíba (UFPB) e Museu de Zoologia de Universidade de São Paulo (MZUSP). Como resultado, registramos 27 espécies de serpentes em 4 brejos da Paraíba e 4 de Pernambuco. A composição da fauna de alguns destes brejos consiste de espécies tanto de áreas florestais quanto de áreas abertas, assim como de espécies amplamente distribuídas em diversos tipos de ambientes. Constatamos também que devido à forte pressão antrópica que estes enclaves vêm sofrendo, estudos sobre biodiversidade destas áreas são imprescindíveis, visando gerar...

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This paper documents zootherapeutic practices in Northeast Brazil. It is primarily based on field surveys carried out in fishing villages located in the States of Maranha˜o and Paraı´ba, where dwellers provided information on snake species used as medicine, body parts used to prepare the remedies, and the illnesses to which the remedies were prescribed. The species used as medicinal drug and their respective families were: Crotalus durissus (rattlesnake), Bothrops leucurus ('lance head', a venomous snake), and Lachesis muta (bushmaster) of the family Crotalidae; and Boa constrictor (boa constrictor), Epicrates cenchria ('salamanta'), and Eunectes murinus (anaconda) of the family (Boidae). These zootherapeutical resources were used for the cure of 14 illnesses. The most commonly cited species were Crotalus durissus (n=26) e Boa constrictor (n=6), Apparently, the medicinal use of snakes does not pose a threat for their population in the studied sites.

The genus Micrurus comprises 123 currently recognized taxa (species and subspecies) that are traditionally arranged in four species groups diagnosable mainly by color pattern characteristics. Here, we describe a new species of triadal coral snake from northeastern Brazil. The new species is distinguished from other sympatric triadal congeners (M. lemniscatus carvalhoi, M. ibiboboca and M. brasiliensis) mainly by the entirely black parietals and by a suite of external characters and hemipenial morphology. The new species appears to be restricted to tropical ombrophilous lowland coastal forests of northeastern Brazil and all recently collected specimens are known to occur in small forest patches surrounded by periurban environment, which calls for an urgent evaluation on its conservation status.

We describe a new species of Amerotyphlops from an upland forest enclave in the state of Paraíba, Northeastern Brazil. The new species is distinguished from the other seven South American species of Amerotyphlops by the combination of the following characters: nasal suture incomplete; rostral scale oval and yellowish cream with some dark brown spots; four supralabial scales; three infralabial scales; rows of scales around the body 18/18/18; middorsal scales from 204 to 225; dorsum with twelve to thirteen rows of scales dark brown and belly with four to five rows of scales immaculate yellowish cream; caudal spine dark brown; subcaudal scales 8-10 in female and 11-13 in males; maximum total length 233 mm. The new species is morphologically similar to A. amoipira and A. paucisquamus, sharing 18/18/18 rows of scales around the body and a small overlap of counts of middorsal scales.