Reptile species composition in the Middle Gurguéia and comparison with inventories in the eastern Parnaíba River Basin, State of Piauí, Brazil

Abstract

The reptile diversity of the Middle Gurguéia River Basin in southern Piauí

First record of Thamnodynastes almae Franco & Ferreira, 2002 (Serpentes, Dipsadidae, Xenodontinae) in the state of Piauí, northeastern Brazil, and updated distribution map

“…Thamnodynastes sp. was also reported in the same municipalities mentioned above (Rocha and Prudente 2010;Rodrigues and Prudente 2011;Madella-Auricchio et al 2017). This unidentified species might represent additional specimens of T. hypoconia, T. phoenix, or even T. almae.…”

“…Our new record also extends the estimated extent of occurrence from 90,775 km 2 (Guedes et al 2014a) to 2,225,890 km 2 . Despite the valuable attempts to provide data about the herpetofauna of Piauí (e.g., Rocha and Prudente 2010;Rodrigues and Prudente 2011;Silva et al 2015;Madella-Auricchio et al 2017;Araújo et al 2020), systematic and long-term inventories are still needed to provide data on snake fauna. The state of Piauí can potentially harbor a high richness of snakes (and other organisms) because it spans five ecoregions (Caatinga, Cerrado, Maranhão Babaçu Forests, Northeastern Brazil Restingas, and Brazilian Atlantic Dry Forests;Dinerstein et al 2017), which promote a mosaic of vegetation types.…”

Studies about Snake Peptides: a Review about Brazilian Contribution

“…Techniques called "omics", such as proteomics and transcriptomics, have enabled the understanding of the biochemistry and functionality of poisons, as well as their application in biotechnology, allowing the use of these poisons from drug development to agricultural application [10][11]. In Brazil, there are 392 species of snakes [12] found in many habitats and niches [13]. In Brazil, researches were carried out and discovered the bradykinin in B. jararaca venom in 1949 [14] and, later, bradykinin-potentiating peptides in the 1960s [15], that allowed the creation of the drug captopril [16] used to treat arterial hypertension.…”