New species of lizard pays homage to Bruno Pereira – 09/28/2023 – Science

When he came across the number of lizards of the genus Iphisa for analysis in her master’s research in the postgraduate program in animal biology at UFPE (Federal University of Pernambuco), biologist Anna Mello knew that the challenge ahead would be great.

Mello had joined the program as part of the laboratory of Pedro Nunes, a professor at the same university, with the aim of carrying out a taxonomic review of the genus, belonging to the Gymnophthalmidae family, which includes more than 280 species distributed throughout the Americas.

Until then, only one species of the genus was known, Iphisa elegansfound throughout the Brazilian Amazon up to the Guiana Shield, and a possible subspecies (classification used to distinguish a population that presents some different characteristics, but not enough to be a new species), I. elegans soiniiin Peru.

“There were 721 specimens [nome dado ao indivíduo que é preservado em coleções científicas]. I knew that this was going to be the main obstacle, but with this number it was possible to bring robustness to the work”, he said.

The analysis of the lizards revealed a hidden diversity of the genus in South America. With the conclusion of the study, Mello and colleagues described five new species and elevated the subspecies to a specific level.

For the new species, the authors chose important figures for forest conservation:

• Iphisa brunopereirain honor of indigenous man Bruno Pereira, murdered in June 2022;
• I. Dorothyin honor of Dorothy Stang, American missionary and activist in the Xingu region in defense of the rights of rural workers;
• I. suruiin honor of Neidinha Suruí and the Paiter-Suruí ethnic group;
• I. munduruku, honoring Alessandra Korap Munduruku and the Munduruku ethnic group;
• I. soinii, which refers to the pig ethnic group, in the Peruvian Amazon; It is
• I. pellegrinonamed after Brazilian researcher Kátia Pellegrino, a specialist in the group.

The article detailing the taxonomic review of the group was published in the Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society. In addition to Mello and Nunes, Renato Recoder and Miguel Trefaut Rodrigues, from the Department of Zoology at USP, and Antoine Fouquet, researcher at CNRS (the main French research funding body) and professor at Paul Sabatier University, in Toulouse ( France).

Lizards of the genus Iphisa They are small, with a maximum length of 4 cm from the tip of the snout to the tip of the tail. They live mainly in leaf litter (vegetation that covers the forest floor) and feed on small invertebrates. From the outside, it is very difficult to differentiate the species, as they look very similar and the color pattern is similar.

According to Nunes, who had been studying the group for a decade, a 2012 analysis already pointed to the existence of so-called “cryptic species” in the group, which are those whose morphological characteristics or information obtained through genetic analysis indicate distinct lineages, but there was no definitive classification as new species.

“We had already observed this variation, mainly with molecular analysis [de DNA]but at the time I had not studied a sufficient number of individuals, including many of the type specimens [como são chamados os espécimes que descrevem a espécie]. So this study was a continuation of that work from at least 11 years ago,” he said.

The analysis of specimens in collections was important, for example, to observe significant differences in external morphology (such as the scale count) and internal morphology (such as the hemipenis, the sexual organs of lizards). These organs are divided and have a series of spines, grooves and striations covering the body. Such differences help researchers understand the evolutionary history of the clades, since different species, in general, do not have the same hemipene morphology.

In addition, the researchers carried out molecular analysis of 116 samples of lizards to evaluate the kinship relationships between the species.

“We see that animals with very different genitalia do not share the same sequence [de DNA], that is, they are clearly distinct populations, and then the question came, which occurred first, the change in the hemipenis, leading to the reproductive separation between the species, or was it an isolation, for example geographic, that led to the changes? We are still looking for an answer to this,” said Nunes.

If before the lizards of the genus Iphisa were considered to have a wide distribution in the Amazon, as they occurred in almost all rivers in the basin, the new species review now shows a much more restricted distribution of some of the taxa, which could lead to greater conservation concern.

The species named after Bruno Pereira, for example, is restricted to a small area in the west of the state of Amazonas. “A I. brunopereira it is isolated in one region, but it is important to highlight that we still have many gaps in distribution, which is probably due to a collection bias, and much of what we know can still be expanded with new studies”, said the researcher.

According to Mello, an initial proposal for the names of the new species took these geographic differences into account, which could, for example, help researchers who were studying the group. “But amid the environmental, social and political scenario we were experiencing in the country, we saw the possibility of bringing this important issue to an animal that is from the Amazon,” he said. “Furthermore, in the case of Bruno and Dorothy Stang, they are people who gave their lives defending the Amazon.”

For Miguel Trefaut Rodrigues, the work also highlights the importance of scientific collections for knowledge. “They carry all the information, not only about the anatomy and morphology of the animals, but also about the environment in which they lived. They need to be preserved because they are our past, present and future history,” he said.