The Lagoa Santa Fauna: Historical Records

Lagoa Santa is one of the most important places in South America in the realm of natural history knowledge. Its renown as the birthplace of Brazilian paleontology is due to the research first undertaken there by Peter Lund in the 19th century. The fauna of the Lagoa Santa Karst is notable for the presence of typical Cerrado savannah species and of the Atlantic Forest domain. Zoologically, the region is extremely important insofar as, in addition to sheltering a peculiar fauna of its own, it is one of the few areas of Brazil for which meticulous inventories have been published. That historical data has made it possible to understand the composition of the groups and to evaluate natural and anthropic-induced changes that have occurred in the course of the past 200 years. Based on an analysis of recent studies, it has been shown that the vertebrate fauna in the region is composed of 70 species of fish distributed among 22 families; 25 species of amphibians belonging to 9 families, and 41 species of reptiles in 14 families. There are also 240 bird species belonging to 58 families and the mammal fauna consists of 107 species belonging to 28 families. In comparison with the historical records of species, there has been a serious reduction in numbers. Evidently, the most important explanatory factor for that reduction is Man’s action in deteriorating the natural environment.