Here we present a commented list of mammals registered in the Serra da Bocaina National Park. Three field trips (February, 2010, and May and July, 2011) were accomplished along the RJ-165 highway in the Municipality of Paraty, State of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Forty-eight species belonging to nine orders were recorded. The local mammal fauna could be considered diverse and rich, with some species regarded as biological indicators of habitat quality. Endangered and rare rodent species like Blarinomys breviceps, Juliomys rimofrons, and Thaptomys nigrita were captured. Road and hunting impacts on mammals are discussed.

Chapada do Araripe is a plateau located within the Caatinga biome in northeastern

Aim: Comprehensive, global information on species’ occurrences is an essential biodiversity variable and central to a range of applications in ecology, evolution, biogeography and conservation. Expert range maps often represent a species’ only available distributional information and play an increasing role in conservation assessments and macroecology. We provide global range maps for the native ranges of all extant mammal species harmonised to the taxonomy of the Mammal Diversity Database (MDD) mobilised from two sources, the Handbook of the Mammals of the World (HMW) and the Illustrated Checklist of the Mammals of the World (CMW). Location: Global. Taxon: All extant mammal species. Methods: Range maps were digitally interpreted, georeferenced, error-checked and subsequently taxonomically aligned between the HMW (6253 species), the CMW (6431 species) and the MDD taxonomies (6362 species). Results: Range maps can be evaluated and visualised in an online map browser at Map of Life ( mol.org ) and accessed for individual or batch download for non-commercial use. Main conclusion: Expert maps of species’ global distributions are limited in their spatial detail and temporal specificity, but form a useful basis for broad-scale characterizations and model-based integration with other data. We provide georeferenced range maps for the native ranges of all extant mammal species as shapefiles, with species-level metadata and source information packaged together in geodatabase format. Across the three taxonomic sources our maps entail, there are 1784 taxonomic name differences compared to the maps currently available on the IUCN Red List website. The expert maps provided here are harmonised to the MDD taxonomic authority and linked to a community of online tools that will enable transparent future updates and version control.

Brazil is the country with the most biodiversity in the world and also hosts the largest rainforest on the planet. Although Brazil was a pioneer of public policies for conservation of biodiversity and natural resources, it has recently jeopardized all biome conservation through questionable environmental policies. Over the past four years, the government has drastically altered its environmental legislation, removing vast areas from protection and encouraging overexploitation of natural resources,, which will result in loss of biodiversity, reduction of forest cover, and increased pollution of soil and water. The Brazilian political-social scene and its relationship with biodiversity conservation are discussed as well.

BackgroundMyotis occurs from tropical to temperate regions throughout the globe, and it is the largest bat genus with more than 100 species. Most species are insect-eaters, but a few also feed on other invertebrates and fishes; there is no confirmed evidence of a plant item in their diet.New informationDuring fieldwork in the Brazilian Atlantic Forest, small seeds were retrieved from the feces of one adult female of the Black Myotis, Myotis nigricans—one of the most common Neotropical bats. In a germination experiment, 40% of those seeds grew into seedlings. Our findings are the first evidence of fruit consumption for any Myotis species. We reject a possible contamination because the cotton bag was never used before for bats. This study is the first evidence of frugivory in the genus Myotis.

The Family Molossidae has a cosmopolitan distribution; it is common in urban areas as well as in agricultural and forested environments. In Brazil, the group comprises seven genera with 25 species. In spite of the representative number of taxa, Molossidae is insufficiently documented in biological inventories. Thus, there is a gap in knowledge about the actual distribution of most species. Here we present new records of tow molossids, Cynomops planirostris and Neoplatymops mattogrossensis, for the state of Piauí, Northeastern Brazil, and review locality records for species throughout the Brazilian territory.

Furipterus horrens is an insectivorous bat that occurs from Costa Rica to southeastern Bolivia and southern Brazil, with records in the Amazon, Caatinga, Cerrado and Atlantic Forest biomes. Despite this broad distributional range across South America, the species is currently known from few localities, and its habitat preferences are poorly known. We report the first record of Furipterus horrens for the Tocantins state, northern Brazil, based on four individuals collected in two caves surrounded by Neotropical savanna (Cerrado) in the Aurora do Tocantins municipality.

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