Spiders rely on venom to catch prey and few species are even capable of capturing vertebrates. The majority of spiders are generalist predators, possessing complex venom, in which different toxins seem to target different types of prey. In this study, we focused on the trophic ecology and venom toxicity of Phoneutria boliviensis F. O. Pickard-Cambridge, 1897, a Central American spider of medical importance. We tested the hypothesis that its venom is adapted to catch vertebrate prey by studying its trophic ecology and venom toxicity against selected vertebrate and invertebrate prey. We compared both trophic ecology (based on acceptance experiments) and toxicity (based on bioassays) among sexes of this species. We found that P. boliviensis accepted geckos, spiders, and cockroaches as prey, but rejected frogs. There was no difference in acceptance between males and females. The venom of P. boliviensis was far more efficient against vertebrate (geckos) than invertebrate (spiders) prey in both immobilization time and LD50. Surprisingly, venom of males was more efficient than that of females. Our results suggest that P. boliviensis has adapted its venom to catch vertebrates, which may explain its toxicity to humans.

This paper describes the Photafish System, an innovative technique for capturing high-quality digital images of live freshwater fishes and other aquatic organisms in the field. This system may improve and facilitate the visual documentation of such organisms to illustrate guidebooks, populate online databases and support scientific papers, particularly taxonomic ones. The system was designed and tested to produce Taxonomically Informative Photos (TIPs) of living specimens and employs an Aquarium Assembly for Photography (AAP) distinguished by its portability and low cost. Using Neotropical freshwater fishes as a model, we propose an optimized protocol for documenting the morphology of live specimens to support taxonomy, as well as awareness and conservation of freshwater biodiversity. This paper addresses the technical aspects and challenges of field studio photography in remote locations. Tricks gleaned from personal experiences with nature photography are also shared. Finally, we briefly discuss the advantages and weaknesses of our approach.

La alta diversidad biológica reportada en Colombia es soportada por la riqueza florística y faunística de la Región Andina, la cual reúne tanto ecosistemas estratégicos como a los más vulnerables a los impactos por fragmentación de hábitat. Para contrarrestar estos efectos, se proponen alternativas para el mantenimiento de dicha riqueza biótica a través de las áreas protegidas. No obstante, en dichas áreas, comúnmente, no existen estudios a largo plazo que den cuenta de la composición precisa de las especies y de sus fluctuaciones poblacionales entre otros aspectos ecológicos. Por tal motivo, se realizó una recopilación de los registros sobre los vertebrados terrestres presentes en la Reserva Forestal Protectora Bosques de la Central Hidroeléctrica de Caldas –CHEC– (Villamaría, Caldas, Colombia), entre 1996-2015, reportados en diferentes estudios y por diversas entidades con el objeto de dar a conocer su estado actual, visualizar vacíos de información y actualizar los listados taxonómicos de los diversos grupos faunísticos reportados. Se encontró que, para la zona, se han registrado 349 especies distribuidas en 75 familias y 33 órdenes. En mamíferos se han reportado 82 especies, 25 familias y 12 órdenes; para aves 227 especies, 43 familias y 18 órdenes; en herpetofauna, 35 especies de anuros pertenecientes a 4 familias y 1 orden y 5 especies de reptiles pertenecientes a 3 familias y 2 órdenes. Se sugiere mantener estudios de mediano y largo plazo para verificar la información recopilada, discriminar entre la fauna local y migratoria, así como detectar los impactos potenciales de la implementación del Proyecto Geotérmico del Valle de Nereidas. Esto permitirá resaltar la importancia de las áreas privadas protegidas en la conservación de la biodiversidad.

Bats in the family Phyllostomidae exhibit great diversity in skull size and morphology that reflects the degree of resource division and ecological overlap in the group. In particular, the subfamily Stenodermatinae has high morphological diversification associated with cranial and mandibular traits that are associated with the ability to consume the full range of available fruits (soft and hard). We analyzed craniodental traits and their relationship to the bite force in 343 specimens distributed in seven species of stenodermatine bats with two foraging strategies: nomadic and sedentary frugivory. We evaluated 19 traits related to feeding and bite force in live animals by correcting bite force with body size. We used a generalized linear model (GLM) and post hoc tests to determine possible relationships and differences between cranial traits, species, and sex. We also used Blomberg's K to measure the phylogenetic signal and phylogenetic generalized least‐squares (PGLS) to ensure the phylogenetic independence of the traits. We found that smaller nomadic species, A. anderseni and A. phaeotis , have a similar bite force to the large species A. planirostris and A. lituratus; furthermore, P. helleri registered a bite force similar to that of the sedentary bat, S. giannae. Our study determined that all the features of the mandible and most of the traits of the skull have a low phylogenetic signal. Through the PGLS, we found that the diet and several cranial features (mandibular toothrow length, dentary length, braincase breadth, mastoid breadth, greatest length of skull, condylo‐incisive length, and condylo‐canine length) determined bite force performance among Stenodermatiane. Our results reinforce that skull size is a determining factor in the bite force, but also emphasize the importance of its relationships with morphology, ecology, and phylogeny of the species, which gives us a better understanding of the evolutionary adaptions of this highly diverse Neotropical bat group.