Cristiana Ferreira-Silva

Micrurus paraensis is a coral snake mainly found across the Amazon region of northern South America, with confirmed sightings in Brazil and Suriname. This study documents the first verified sighting of M. paraensis in Ceará, northeastern Brazil, and the first record of the lizard Micrablepharus maximiliani as its prey. An adult male was collected in Serra de Uruburetama, a humid mountain forest area within the semi-arid Caatinga. The specimen was identified based on its distinctive morphological and color features and was subsequently deposited in the Herpetological Collection of the Federal University of Ceará. Examination of its stomach contents revealed a recently ingested M. maximiliani, swallowed headfirst. This extends the snake’s known range by about 575 km southeast from the closest previous record in Maranhão and marks the first time a lizard has been documented as part of its diet. The presence of an Amazonian-related snake in Serra de Uruburetama suggests this northeastern forest patch acts as a biogeographic refuge, possibly maintaining ancient connections with Amazonian forests during wetter Pleistocene eras, later becoming isolated as forests contracted. This dietary finding broadens the understanding of the feeding ecology of M. paraensis, indicating that small, leaf-litter-dwelling gymnophthalmid lizards could be prey. Overall, these discoveries address gaps in knowledge of the snake’s distribution and natural history, highlighting the ecological and conservation value of northeastern Brazil’s humid forests.

Parasitological studies are important to understand the host-parasite interaction, providing information on the coevolution, biogeography, morphology, and diet of the species. The present study describes the endoparasite fauna of the lizard Phyllopezus pollicaris (Spix, 1825) in the Palmares National Forest, Piauí State, Brazil, a tropical forest covered by transitional vegetation between the Caatinga and Cerrado biomes. Furthermore, we investigated the influence of lizards’ size and sex on endoparasite infection patterns. We analyzed 23 individuals of P. pollicaris, of which 18 were infected by at least one helminth, belonging to the Nematoda phylum: Spauligodon oxkutzcabiensis (Chitwood, 1938), Strongyloides sp., and Parapharyngodon sp. Overall, S. oxkutzcabiensis showed the highest prevalence (73.9%), mean infection intensity (8.64 ± 12.7), and mean abundance (6.39 ± 11.5). We observed that the lizard size was positively related to the abundance of endoparasites, while the sex of individuals had a poor effect on parasitological descriptors.This study contributes information about the endoparasite fauna associated with P. pollicaris, composed exclusively of nematodes. As a pioneering study, it can be considered the starting point for parasitological studies involving lizards in Piauí State, Northeastern Brazil.

During an ecological study with a near-endangered anuran in Brazil, the Schmidt’s Spinythumb frog, Crossodactylus schmidti Gallardo, 1961, we were given a chance to analyze the gastrointestinal tract of a few individuals for parasites. In this paper, we describe a new species of an allocreadiid trematode of the genus Creptotrema Travassos, Artigas & Pereira, 1928, which possesses a unique trait among allocreadiids (i.e., a bivalve shell-like muscular structure at the opening of the ventral sucker); the new species represents the fourth species of allocreadiid trematode parasitizing amphibians. Besides, the new species is distinguished from other congeners by the combination of characters such as the body size, ventral sucker size, cirrus-sac size, and by having small eggs. DNA sequences through the 28S rDNA and COI mtDNA further corroborated the distinction of the new species. Phylogenetic analyses placed the newly generated sequences in a monophyletic clade together with all other sequenced species of Creptotrema. Genetic divergences between the new species and other Creptotrema spp. varied from 2.0 to 4.2% for 28S rDNA, and 15.1 to 16.8% for COI mtDNA, providing robust validation for the recognition of the new species. Even though allocreadiids are mainly parasites of freshwater fishes, our results confirm anurans as hosts of trematodes of this family. Additionally, we propose the reallocation of Auriculostoma ocloya Liquin, Gilardoni, Cremonte, Saravia, Cristóbal & Davies, 2022 to the genus Creptotrema. This study increases the known diversity of allocreadiids and contributes to our understanding of their evolutionary relationships, host–parasite relationships, and biogeographic history.

The number of studies on the ecology of the genus Boana is vast in Brazilian biomes. Among the different species of this genus, B. raniceps is considered a common and widely distributed species. Despite this, only a few studies have explored the ecology of this species in the Caatinga biome. In this study we present information on the diet composition, reproduction, and sexual dimorphism of B. raniceps in the Caatinga biome, northeastern Brazil, providing additional information about the natural history of the species. We observed that B. raniceps has a generalist diet, consuming a great diversity of prey categories, but with a numerical and volumetric prevalence of Coleoptera. Interestingly, there was an ontogenetic and sexual variation in the diet, with the Relative Importance Index (RII) for each prey category differed between males, females, and juveniles. Females were found bearing mature eggs in both the rainy and dry seasons. The number of eggs carried by each female ranged from 153 to 3904. There was sexual dimorphism in body size, with females larger than males. However, size was not a limiting factor in fecundity. Here, we present new information on the natural history of B. raniceps and reinforce the need for further studies with widely distributed and known species. This is the first study to demonstrate ontogenetic and sexual variation in the diet of anurans of the genus Boana.

In this study, we investigated the infection by pulmonary parasites in the water snake Helicops angulatus. We found four nymphs of the pentastomide parasite Sebekia oxycephala, parasitizing two adult females H. angulatus collected in the municipality of Rio Tinto, Paraíba, Brazil. This occurrence is likely due to the nymphs of this parasite directly infecting aquatic intermediate hosts, such as fish. The result of this study represents the first record of pentastomid infecting H. angulatus.

Cosmocerca spp. are common nematode parasites of amphibians. We provide herein molecular data for two species of Cosmocerca and describe a new species, Cosmocerca albopunctata n. sp., using light microscopy and molecular data (cytochrome c oxidase subunit 1 – COI mtDNA). Cosmocerca albopunctata n. sp. can be easily distinguished from other congeneric species by the combination of characteristics such as body size, length of spicules and gubernaculum, and the arrangements and number of caudal papillae (7 + 1:1 + 1:6). The phylogenetic results based on the partial COI mtDNA sequences clustered the new species in a monophyletic clade along with the other sequences of Cosmocerca spp. Therefore, our results contribute to the knowledge about the species diversity and genetic data for Cosmocerca spp. in the Neotropical region.

During a parasite survey in Brazilian amphibians from São Paulo state, Brazil, Gorgoderina parvicava Travassos, 1922 was found in the urinary bladder (11 adult worms) and (five juvenile worms) in the kidneys of the pepper-frog Leptodactylus labyrinthicus (Spix, 1824). Parasites were examined by microscopy and 28S rDNA and COI gene were sequenced and analyzed for the molecular study. The phylogenetic reconstructions resulted in identical topologies with highly supported values in the nodes in most clades using Maximum likelihood and Bayesian inference methods and positioned G. parvicava in the subclade formed by species of subfamily Gorgoderinae parasitizing the urinary bladder of amphibians. Molecular phylogenetic data showed that this species is related to other species of Gorgoderina. In addition, new molecular data and the analyses of genetic distances provide extra comparative data, which can be applied in further investigations on the taxonomic status and the diversity among Gorgoderina spp. and host-parasite relationships.