Hi. Welcome to the Sagarana Lab of Herpetology
We are based at the Universidade Federal de Viçosa (UFV), campus Florestal. Florestal is a small city in the metropolitan region of Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, southeastern Brazil. Our broader aim is to support basic research of excellent quality in herpetology designed to serve conservation proposes.
The Lab focuses primarily in describing and understanding Neotropical amphibian and reptile diversity and evolution using a wide array of traditional and molecular techniques. We serve as a research and training facility for postdoc associates, graduate and undergraduate students who conduct researches in the field of e-taxonomy, systematics, phylogeography and biogeography, always giving the deserved value to species natural history.
Amphibians of the Quadrilátero Ferrífero
With an area smaller than 0.01% of the Brazilian territory, the Quadrilátero Ferrífero harbors around 10% of the country’s species. However, such biological richness is under threat because it overlaps one of the country’s largest ore deposits and the third most populous metropolitan region in Brazil.
In this project, we present an exhaustive amphibian inventory based on more than 20 years of fieldwork and an interactive taxonomic key, fully illustrated, available for smartphones and computers allowing the identification of adults, calls and tadpoles of 90 species.
Herpetofauna of the Rio Doce
The Rio Doce State Park is the largest Atlantic Forest remnant at the state of Minas Gerais and, in 2015, was affected by the worst environmental disaster of Brazil, the collapse of the Fundão tailings dam, in Mariana.
Based on an intense fieldwork, made after the disaster, we present an inventory and field guide of the herpetofauna of these irreplaceable natural reserve illustrated by amazing and didactic species photographs. Still, we are working on a regional taxonomic treatment of the reserve amphibians plus an interactive identification key.