Mammal Collection of the Universidade Estadual do Norte Fluminense Darcy Ribeiro (UENFMZ):

The Mammal Collection of UENF was created in 2013 to document the biodiversity of northern Rio de Janeiro, and house voucher specimens collected during field research held by professors from the university and collaborating institutions. The collection currently holds 440 physical vouchers, mostly bats, and includes noteworthy records, such as the first Promops nasutus reported for the state of Rio de Janeiro. To these physical vouchers, we recently added a digital bioacoustics collection (343 files of bat distress calls) and a camera-trap multimedia collection (2683 videos or photographs of small to large-sized mammals). In this paper, we provide an overview of these holdings, and highlight and discuss the importance of regional scientific collections, along with the fundamental role of publishing their records in online databases in order to increase their visibility and scientific use. Finally, we discuss the importance of natural history collections to society, emphasizing that improving the awareness of the general public on the role of these collections to scientific development will be crucial for their conservation over the next centuries.

THE IMPORTANCE OF TAXONOMY ON BASE SCIENCE

Although species identification is a central component on Biological Sciences, misidentifications are quite common generating error cascade effects on other environmental studies, resulting on erroneous population estimates, status, trends, and distribution data. One of the main causes of these errors occurs when dealing with damaged material, immature specimens, sexual dimorphism, intraspecific variation, and species with poor or outdated descriptions. Furthermore, usually there is no material retained as voucher of the specimens studied in scientific collections, hindering confirmation the identified species, in morphoanatomical and genetic scope. Even with this reliance on species identification taxonomy has been in decline for many years. In this study, we present the case study of the crustaceans identified for the Minho River estuary (NW Iberian Peninsula), using a taxonomic approach comparing these results with the biological surveys obtained through various ecology studies performed for 4 decades. A total of 64 species of crustaceans were identified within this study, in which 44 were new records for the Minho River estuary, compared to the 25 species identified on the biological surveys analyzed. Being one of the first studies of this nature in the Minho River, the main objective will be to provide taxonomic support in future projects in this area, contributing to the knowledge of the fauna of Portugal and the Iberian Peninsula.

Checklist of freshwater fishes from Loreto, Peru

This study presents an extensive review of published and unpublished occurrence records of fish species in the Loreto department. Located in the northeast of the country, Loreto is the most geographically extensive region in the Peruvian territory. Despite the increase in fish collections in Loreto in recent years, the ichthyofauna of this department needs to be more documented. Based on a database of scientific collections and bibliographic information, an updated checklist of the freshwater fishes from Loreto is presented. The results reveal a rich and diversified ichthyofauna, with 873 species distributed in 331 genera, 50 families and 15 orders. The main groups are Characiformes (42.6%), Siluriformes (34.8%), Gymnotiformes (8.6%) and Cichliformes (7.4%). Part of the ichthyofauna has restricted distribution for Loreto (4.7%). In addition, 9.0% of species from Loreto are used in fisheries. Meanwhile, 219 species (25%) were categorized according to the IUCN criteria where only six species (0.7%) are currently considered threatened species (CR, EN or VU). The results presented in this work indicate that this department needs more studies to know the biodiversity of fish, likewise, the information presented constitutes a contribution to the knowledge of fish diversity that would support environmental management actions and decision-making aimed at conserving one of the most diverse departments of Peru.

NERITIDAE (GASTROPODA, NERITIMORPHA) FROM THE MALACOLOGICAL COLLECTION PROF. HENRY RAMOS MATTHEWS OF THE UNIVERSIDADE FEDERAL DO CEARÁ, BRAZIL

The basic information obtained from scientific collections help us to understanding of Earth’s diverse biota and its biological processes. The Malacological Collection Prof. Henry Ramos Matthews (CMPHRM) of the Universidade Federal do Ceará (UFC), Brazil, is a reference about the biodiversity, mainly marine, of northeastern Brazil. In this collection, the gastropod molluscs of the family Neritidae were among the most representative in number of lots. Since an accurate geographical distribution knowledge is one of the fundamental factors to the study of biodiversity, the present study aimed to describe the composition and spatially analyse the neritids deposited in the CMPHRM/UFC. There is a total of 314 lots of the Neritidae deposited at CMPHRM, belonging to eight species (Nerita chamaeleon, Nerita chlorostoma, Nerita fulgurans, Nerita tessellata, Neritina virginea, Neritina meleagris, Neritina zebra, and Smaragdia viridis). The Malacological Collection Prof. Henry Ramos Matthews of the Universidade Federal do Ceará has representatives of all species of Neritidae recorded in the Brazilian Province, which are important for confirming previous records or establishing new occurrence records. Keywords: Neritina, Nerita, Smaragdia, Brazilian Province

The traditional economic culture of the Tatars in N.A. Khalikov’s works (in memory of the scholar and colleague)

The article highlights the main directions of scientific work of Nail Alfredovich Khalikov, a well-known Russian ethnographer who studied the life and traditional economy of the Tatars, the author of significant academic works on the ethnography of the people. The main research of the scientist is related to the collection and interpretation of ethnographic sources (expedition, museum, archival, visual) and preparation for publishing “Historical and Ethnographic Atlas of the Tatar People”, where he was the author and a permanent member of the editorial board. In the 1970s–2000s, rural settlements of the Volga-Ural Tatars (Tatarstan, Udmurtia, Chuvashia, Bashkiria, Mari El, Kirov, Penza, Nizhny Novgorod, Ulyanovsk, Perm, Orenburg, Chelyabinsk regions), then Astrakhan (Astrakhan, Saratov regions) and Siberian Tatars (Tyumen, Omsk, Tomsk regions) were examined according to a special program developed by N.A. Khalikov. As a result of that work, a source base on traditional farming, including agriculture and folk crafts, as well as numerous monographs, publications in scientific collections, articles in the multi-volume “Tatar Encyclopedia” was created. Currently, N.A. Khalikov’s expedition materials (field diaries, photographs, sketches and drawings) have been partially digitized and are stored in the archive of the Marjani Institute of History of the Tatarstan Academy of Sciences.

A new genus and seven new species of chrysopetalids (Annelida, Chrysopetalidae) from the Tropical Eastern Pacific

Chrysopetalids annelids have been little studied in the Tropical Eastern Pacific (TEP), with only 24 species recorded in the region. Most records are from northwestern Mexico and Costa Rica, leaving many sites along the Tropical Pacific coast of America unexplored. Furthermore, there are species recorded and described from the region with problems in their status, including questionable records, modest illustrations or descriptions, and lost type material. This paper aims to improve the knowledge of this family in the TEP. Almost 290 specimens were revised, provided from five scientific collections, covering 51 sites along the TEP and nearby. Two subfamilies: Calamyzinae and Chrysopetalinae, nine genera and 20 species were determined. Of these, ten species have been previously recorded, three are indeterminable and seven are new species: Paleanotus karlyae n. sp., Arichlidon mucropaleum n. sp., Bhawania bastidai n. sp., Chrysopetalum mexicanum n. sp., C. tovarae n. sp. A new genus is proposed, Bhawatsonia n. gen. which includes two new species, B. fusa n. sp. as its type species, B. nenoae n. sp. and, the new combination and neotype of B. purpurea n. comb. An updated and revised checklist of all chrysopetalids species recorded in the region is included, currently composed of 16 genera, 30 species, and four morphospecies.

Digital Libraries and the Common Digital Space of Mathematical Knowledge

We present the results of the development of a range of semantic services for the integrated management of electronic scientific collections. The goals of these developments are the formation of a unified digital space of mathematical knowledge, as well as information support for research activities in the field of mathematics and computer science. The digital collections we create and the semantic services we develop form the backbone of the Lobachevskii-DML digital math library. In implementing this study, we used approaches that are consistent with the widely discussed and accepted concepts of building the World Digital Mathematical Library (WDML).

Jesuits, Transylvanian Baroque and the Middle Ages: Ignatius Batthyány and Saint Gerardus of Cenad

Although considered as the end of the Late (baroque) Scholasticism, in Central Europe the 18th century still bore the substance of philosophical thinking and education of the Jesuit baroque philosophy, especially its ideal of building study societies and classical libraries accompanied by astronomical observatories and scientific collections. The Jesuit model of Eger was brought by the Transylvanian Bishop Ignatius Batthyány at Alba Iulia where he has established a learning place consisting in a classical and theological library and founded a literary society, trained a professional librarian and aimed at offering a study place for meritory scholars. He was himself a theologian, paleographer and historian, edited and commented on the treatise Deliberatio supra hymnum trium puerorum ad Isingrimum liberalem by the 11th century Benedictine Bishop Gerardus of Cenad. Bishop Batthyány was for many reasons a baroque scholar although many times introduced as a man of Enlightenment by some historians.

Sabellariids (Annelida: Sedentaria: Sabellariidae) from shallow waters of the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, including three new species

The Sabellariidae has been scarcely studied in the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, and there are 18 species recorded out of 140 species known in the world. This work aims to improve the knowledge of the sabellariids in the northwestern tropical Atlantic region, provide standardized descriptions, and generate taxonomic identification keys. Sabellariids from three scientific collections were revised: Reference Collection of Laboratorio de Poliquetos, El Colegio de la Frontera Sur (ECOSUR), Chetumal, Collection of Laboratorio de Biodiversidad y Cambio Climático, ECOSUR, Campeche and Invertebrate Zoology Collection of Florida Natural History Museum, University of Florida, Gainesville. Three new species are described: Idanthyrsus bastidai n. sp. and I. mikeli n. sp. from Venezuela, and Sabellaria salazari n. sp. from the Yucatán Peninsula. In addition, new records of S. floridensis Hartman, 1944, S. vulgaris Verrill, 1873, and Phragmatopoma caudata Krøyer in Mörch, 1863 are provided.

Looking into the flora of Dutch Brazil: botanical identifications of seventeenth century plant illustrations in the Libri Picturati

The Libri Picturati includes a collection of plant illustrations from seventeenth century Dutch Brazil that is kept in the Jagiellonian library in Krakow since World War II. While many studies focused on the artistic details and history of these images, we identified the flora depicted. We used contemporary textual sources (e.g., Historia Naturalis Brasiliae), monographs and taxonomist’ assessments. We checked origin, life form, domestication and conservation status and the plant parts that are represented. We identified 198 taxa, consisting mostly of wild, native rainforest trees and 35 introduced species. Fertile branches are the most represented, although some loose dry fruits and sterile material were also painted, which sheds light into the collection methods by naturalists in Dutch Brazil. Several species are no longer abundant or have become invasive due to anthropogenic influences since colonialism. Through this botanical iconography, we traced the first records of the sunflower and the Ethiopian pepper in Brazil, as well as the dispersion and assimilation of the flora encountered in the colony by Indigenous, African and European peoples. We emphasized the relevance of combining visual and textual sources when studying natural history collections and we highlighted how digitalization makes these artistic and scientific collections more accessible.