The first reports of Brazilian biodiversity: an update on the river dolphin described and depicted in the XVIIth century manuscript History of Animals and Trees of Maranhão

During the XVIth and XVIIth centuries, the reports about Brazilian biodiversity were made mainly by chroniclers, military explorers and religious missionaries of various nationalities. Some reports included drawings representing the local fauna and flora. The XVIIth century manuscript History of Animals and Trees of Maranhão published under authorship of Friar Cristóvão de Lisboa presents for the first time the association of the description with the depiction of a river dolphin in Brazil. Anterior papers related it to Inia geoffrensis (Blainville, 1817) with current distribution in the Amazon basin. At the beginning of this century, a new species Inia araguaiaensis Hrbek, Da Silva, Dutra, Gravena, Martin & Farias, 2014 was described from the Araguaia-Tocantins basin and Marajó bay. A doubt arises about which species is related to the manuscript. The aims here were to identify the river dolphin described and depicted in the manuscript and to relate the manuscript and the identification of the river dolphin to the context of the production of the first reports on Brazilian biodiversity in the XVIth and XVIIth centuries. Analyzing biological, geographic and historical data, we identify the river dolphin in the manuscript as Inia araguaiaensis. We consider that the manuscript History of Animals and Trees of Maranhão was ahead of its time in Brazil, since it contained, in addition to the textual descriptions of the species, 259 drawings representing the local biodiversity, of which almost half (116) referred to aquatic fauna. The large number of drawings denotes the importance given by the possible authors of the manuscript to the existence of images that represented this biodiversity in line with what was being produced in Europe. The manuscript, remained unknown until the xxth century, would considerably expand knowledge about the fauna and flora of Brazil in the XVIIth century.