Catalog of medium and large-sized mammals from the state of Pará, Brazil, housed in the Museu de Zoologia da Universidade de São Paulo (MZUSP)

Abstract

The Mammal Collection of the Museu de Zoologia da Universidade de São Paulo (MZUSP) is one of the largest collections of Neotropical mammals in Latin America, housing about 50,000 specimens. One of the most representative series in this collection comes from the Brazilian Amazon Biome. Among the Brazilian Amazon states, Pará was target of several scientific expeditions led by MZUSP researchers, becoming one of the most representative in terms of number of specimens and species richness in the collection. Here we present a list of the medium and large-sized mammal specimens from Pará state housed in the MZUSP, with comments about taxonomy, the conservation status of the species and other associated information. We found 1,910 specimens representing 79 species and nine orders of medium and large-sized mammals from Pará. Among these, 24 species are currently classified as threatened in Brazil. Furthermore, we found some areas with higher concentration of collection localities, such as at the banks of the lower Rio Tapajós and in the northeastern region of the state. The present catalog plays an important role in presenting the currently known biodiversity of medium and large-sized mammals of Pará, also acting as a primary source for systematics, ecological, conservation and biogeographic studies

Giant otter (Pteronura brasiliensis): a database of specimens held in major Brazilian zoological collections

“…Our dataset ("Pteronura_brazil.csv") lists the available specimens deposited in the major zoological collections in Brazil, including data on voucher specimens, locality, date of collection, gender, material deposited and primary reference. The column "Voucher specimen" refers to a preserved animal specimen, all or a portion (skin, skull, tissues) that is collected, preserved, and maintained as reference material in a museum as a permanent reference; "State" refers to a federated state within a territorial and constitutional community forming part of the Brazilian federation; "Locality" refers to a place, spot, or district, where the collection of the organism was made; "Date of collection" refers to the day, month and year of the collection of the referred specimen; "Gender" is either the male or female division of a species; "Material deposited" refers to the piece of evidence that was examined and checked for future reference; "Primary reference" refers to the very first scientific peerreviewed publication that lists the referred voucher specimen(s), they are: Brandão et al (2019), Cáceres et al (2008), De Vivo et al (2011), Nascimento and Vendramel (2020, Siciliano et al (2008), Tomas et al (2017 and Vieira (1946). Dataset: Pteronura_brazil.csv…”