Roberta da Rocha Braga¹* and Antônio Rafael Lima Ramos^1,2

¹Academic Laboratory of Wildlife Pathology (LAPS), Ophiology Department (NUROF), Federal University of Ceará (UFC), Brazil
²Systematic, Biodiversity Use and Conservation Post Graduation Program, Federal University of Ceará (UFC), Brazil

*Corresponding Author: Roberta da Rocha Braga, Academic Laboratory of Wildlife Pathology (LAPS), Ophiology Department (NUROF), Federal University of Ceará (UFC), Brazil.

Received: August 16, 2021; Published: September 20, 2021

Abstract

  Physical injuries represent one of the main threats to free-living animals, and interactions with humans perform the leading cause of their admission in veterinary care. In the USA, the main causes of physical injuries in reptiles and amphibians were run over, fishing or gardening accidents, and predation by domestic carnivores. Anthropic actions potentially increase the morbidity and mortality in reptiles due to traumatic injuries and can cause populations to be isolated in forest remnants, such as urban parks. Fortaleza is a metropolis in northeastern Brazil, that has progressively lost its vegetation cover due to urbanization processes. However, as the ERA "Matinha do Pici", few urban parks stand out as a hotspot of local fauna conservation. The objective of this work was to report and characterize a sample of traumatized reptiles, received, and examined at LAPS-UFC, in Fortaleza, from 2010 to 2020. Thirty-four cases were included, mostly lizards from the ERA "Matinha do Pici", with diverse blunt force lesions, mainly caused by domestic carnivores' predation, run over or human predation.

Keywords: Wildlife; Physical Injuries; Predation; Roadkill; Ceará

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Citation

Citation: Roberta da Rocha Braga and Antônio Rafael Lima Ramos. “Traumatized Reptiles: A Retrospective Study of Wild Reptiles Examined in Northeastern Brazil". Acta Scientific Veterinary Sciences 3.10 (2021): 28-32.

Copyright

Copyright: © 2021 Roberta da Rocha Braga and Antônio Rafael Lima Ramos. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.