Identification of the taxonomic composition of Serpents (Squamata, Ophidia) from Patos site of the Solimões Formation (Acre Basin), Late Miocene

• Grant number: 25/02606-0
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: May 01, 2025
• End date: April 30, 2026
• Field of knowledge: Biological Sciences - Zoology - Paleozoology
• Principal Investigator: Annie Schmaltz Hsiou
• Grantee: Lucas Abrahão de Toledo Lima
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Ciências e Letras de Ribeirão Preto (FFCLRP). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Ribeirão Preto , SP, Brazil

Abstract

In Solimões Formation, there is great richness in the fossil diversity that are found in Late Miocene dated rocks, and constitute fragments of the Proto-Amazon, an environment that by the Miocene had suffered great biotic and abiotic changes, providing a diversity of studies about its palaeofauna, its palaeoecology and its palaeoenvironmental aspects. The Solimões Formation has a vast fossil register from serpents from the Late Miocene in the region of the Acre State that come from different palaeontological sites of different taxonomic groups and with the presence of the enigmatic genus Colombophis as well representants of Boidae and Colubroids. In 2022 the expedition USP/UFAC/ICMBio to the Patos site localized at the the High Acre river in the frontier between Brazil and Peru collected innumerous fossils of tetrapods including a variety of serpents and others indetermined Squamata. By this, the project looks to the identification and taxonomy from cranial and isolated post-cranial elements comparing then with extinct and extant serpents taxa, with the goal of amplifying the knowledge of the palaeoherpetofauna to the Brazilian Amazon Miocene.