Description
The São Tomé and Príncipe herpetological collections of the Instituto de Investigação Científica Tropical (IICT), currently housed in the Museu Nacional de História Natural e da Ciência (MUHNAC) are part of the scientific collections of the Universidade de Lisboa (UL), Portugal. This set comprises a total of 233 records (233 specimens), representing 28 taxa (7 amphibians and 21 reptiles). These were collected between 1954 and 1984, either by targeted surveys promoted by the IICT or by fortuitous collections and donations by private individuals and researchers.
Data Records
The data in this occurrence resource has been published as a Darwin Core Archive (DwC-A), which is a standardized format for sharing biodiversity data as a set of one or more data tables. The core data table contains 233 records.
This IPT archives the data and thus serves as the data repository. The data and resource metadata are available for download in the downloads section. The versions table lists other versions of the resource that have been made publicly available and allows tracking changes made to the resource over time.
Versions
The table below shows only published versions of the resource that are publicly accessible.
How to cite
Researchers should cite this work as follows:
Ceríaco LMP, Marques MP (2018): Sao Tome and Principe Herpetological Collection - IICT. v1. Instituto de Investigação Científica Tropical. Dataset/Occurrence. http://ipt.gbif.pt/ipt/resource?r=sao_tome_and_principe_herpetological_collection_iict&v=1.0
Rights
Researchers should respect the following rights statement:
The publisher and rights holder of this work is Instituto de Investigação Científica Tropical. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC-BY-NC 4.0) License.
GBIF Registration
This resource has been registered with GBIF, and assigned the following GBIF UUID: f1e0c699-a29e-4484-9070-373d283ac245. Instituto de Investigação Científica Tropical publishes this resource, and is itself registered in GBIF as a data publisher endorsed by GBIF Portugal.
Keywords
São Tomé and Príncipe; Amphibia; Reptilia; Specimens; Museums; Type specimens; Portuguese collections; Specimen
Contacts
- Metadata Provider ●
- Curator ●
- Originator ●
- Point Of Contact
http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0591-9978
- Metadata Provider ●
- Curator ●
- Originator ●
- Point Of Contact
Geographic Coverage
The São Tomé and Príncipe Islands (including the Tinhosa Grande Islet), Gulf of Guinea
| Bounding Coordinates | South West [-0.396, 5.889], North East [2.328, 8.042] |
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Taxonomic Coverage
The dataset comprises representatives of 11 families, 16 genus, 28 species of Amphibians and Reptiles.
| Class | Amphibia, Reptilia |
|---|---|
| Order | Anura, Gymnophiona, Squamata |
| Family | Dermophiidae, Ptychadenidae, Hyperoliidae, Arthroleptidae, Phrynobatrachidae, Scincidae, Colubridae, Typhlopidae, Gekkonidae, Lamprophiidae, Elapidae |
| Genus | Schitometopum, Ptychadena, Hyperolius, Leptopelis, Phrynobatrachus, Trachylepis, Philothamnus, Letheobia, Hemidactylus, Hapsidophrys, Boaedon, Afrotyphlops, Naja, Panaspis, Feylinia, Lygodactylus |
| Species | Schitometopum thomense, Ptychadena newtoni, Hyperolius sp., Hyperolius thomensis, Leptopelis palmatus, Phrynobatrachus dispar, Phrynobatrachus leveleve, Trachylepis affinis, Philothamnus thomensis, Letheobia newtoni, Hemidactylus principensis, Hapsidophrys principis, Hemidactylus longicephalus, Boaedon sp., Afrotyphlops elegans, Hemidactylus sp., Trachylepis adamastor, Trachylepis thomensis, Trachylepis principensis, Letheobia sp., Hemidactylus mabouia, Boaedon bedriagae, Naja peroescobari, Hemidactylus greeffii, Feylinia polylepis, Lygodactylus delicatus, Panaspis africana, Panaspis thomensis |
Temporal Coverage
| Start Date / End Date | 1954-01-01 / 1984-01-01 |
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Sampling Methods
The majority of the records of this dataset result from the Missões Científica de São Tomé carried out by the former Junta de Investigação do Ultramar, coordinated by Fernando Frade during 1954. Some other material from Príncipe Island, collected during the years of 1955 and 1956, correspond to offers by Décio Passos (a former official of the Príncipe Airport Services). Other records result from intermittent donations of specimens to the Junta de Investigação Científica do Ultramar from 1955 to 1971. Some of these specimens were previously studied and cited in Manaças (1958, 1973), and more recently used on species descriptions (Ceríaco 2015; Ceríaco et al. 2016, 2018; Soares et al. 2018).
| Study Extent | The study covers both São Tomé and Príncipe Islands, but also the small islet of Tinhosa Grande, situated at approximately 20 km southwest of Príncipe Island. The temporal distribution is mainly concentrated in the decade of 1950's (especially in years 1954, 1955 and 1956). |
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| Quality Control | Information from each specimen was catalogued in an Excel spreadsheet, involving two steps: i) digitization of specimens records; and ii) taxonomic revision and data checking. Nomenclature was checked through available literature, The Reptile Database [http://reptile-database.reptarium.cz/], and the Amphibia Species of the World v.6.0 [http://research.amnh.org/vz/herpetology/amphibia/]. Georeferencing followed the recommendations by Chapman and Wieczorek (2006), including the determination of uncertainty of coordinates, in particular when insufficient information was available from specimens' records and labels to attribute a specific locality (e.g. Island). |
Method step description:
- The herpetological collections were catalogued using the software Microsoft Excel. We conducted extensive shelf surveys to locate all the remaining São Tomé and Príncipe specimens of amphibians and reptiles. After locating the specimens, basic curatorial procedures were taken. Each jar was cleaned, and ethanol or formalin was changed to 70% ethanol gradually. In certain cases jars were substituted as they were cracked or were otherwise not reliably sealable. All the information linked to the survinving specimens and/or jars were collected, copied, and linked to the specimen. After completion of curatorial activities, each specimen was identified to the species and/or subspecies level. The identification of the specimens was accomplished by consulting the most updated available literature sources and followed the currently accepted nomenclature. Additionally, the specimens' original information was re-checked at this phase, comparing the label data with surviving original field books and catalgoues, in order to screen for any initial cataloguing errors. The collecting locality for each bibliographic reference was georeferenced following the GPS location available in newer publications, and then also converting to decimal degrees. When no data were available in the recent publications, we used "GEOLocate online application" (http://www.museum.tulane.edu/geolocate/) for georeferencing the locality cited . The uncertainty of georeferenced localities was recorded whenever possible. For some records it was not possible to determine the coordinates due to insufficient location information. All coordinates are given in geographic format, decimal degrees, datum WGS 84.
Collection Data
| Collection Name | Instituto de Investigação Científica Tropical |
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| Specimen preservation methods | Alcohol |
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| Curatorial Units | Count 234 +/- 0 specimens |
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Bibliographic Citations
- Manaças, S. (1958) Anfíbios e Répteis das ilhas de São Tomé e do Príncipe e do Ilhéo das Rolas. In: Conferência Internacional dos Africanistas Ocidentais, Junta Investigação do Ultramar, Lisboa, 4: 179–192.
- Manaças, S. (1973) Alguns dos anfíbios e répteis da província de S. Tomé e Príncipe. In: Livro de Homenagem ao Prof. Fernando Frade. Junta Investigação do Ultramar, Lisboa, pp. 219–230.
- Ceríaco, L.M.P. (2015) Lost in the middle of the sea, found in the back of the shelf: A new giant species of Trachylepis (Squamata: Scincidae) from Tinhosa Grande islet, Gulf of Guinea. Zootaxa, 3973 (3): 511–527.
- Ceríaco, L.M.P, Marques, M.P. & Bauer, A.M. (2016) A review of the genus Trachylepis (Sauria: Scincidae) from the Gulf of Guinea, with the descriptions of two new species in the Trachylepis maculilabris (Gray, 1845) species complex. Zootaxa, 4109 (3): 284-314.
- Ceríaco, L.M.P., Marques, M.P., Schmitz, A. & Bauer, A.M. (2018) The “Cobra-preta” of São Tomé Island, Gulf of Guinea, is a new species of Naja Laurenti, 1768 (Squamata: Elapidae). Zootaxa, 4324 (1): 121–141.
- Soares, L.B, Ceríaco, L.M.P., Marques, M.P., Bastos-Silveira, C., Scheinberg, L.A., Harris, D.J., Brehm, A. & Jesus, J. (2018) Review of the leaf-litter skinks (Scincidae: Panaspis) from the Gulf of Guinea Oceanic Islands with the description of a new species. African Journal of Herpetology, DOI: 10.1080/21564574.2017.1413015.
Additional Metadata
| Alternative Identifiers | f1e0c699-a29e-4484-9070-373d283ac245 |
|---|---|
| http://ipt.gbif.pt/ipt/resource?r=sao_tome_and_principe_herpetological_collection_iict |