Josefa Celsa Señaris

Josefa Celsa Señaris (born 2 November 1965) is a Venezuelan herpetologist. She has published information about frogs and she has identified new genera and species. Señaris is the director of the La Salle Foundation's Natural History Museum (Spanish: Museo de historia natural La Salle - MhnLS) in Caracas.

Josefa Celsa Señaris
Born2 November 1965
Caracas
NationalityVenezuelan
Scientific career
Author abbrev. (zoology)Señaris

Life

Señaris was born in 1965 and she obtained a degree in biology at the Central University of Venezuela and her doctorate in 2001 at the University of Santiago de Compostela in Spain.[1]

She is interested in the fauna of Venezuela, in particular the Guayana Region where table-top mountains called tepuis provide habitats for endemic plant and animal species: some amphibians are known only from a single tepuy. From a geological point of view, the tepuis have been isolated for approximately 120 million years,[2] and it has been suggested that the tepuy habitats are a "lost world" that could support relictual populations.[3] However, Señaris's work suggests that in a zoological context tepuis are not as isolated as originally believed, and that some of their species are neoendemics rather than paleoendemics. For example, an endemic group of tree frogs, Tepuihyla, have diverged after the tepuis were formed, that is, speciation followed colonization from the lowlands.[4]

Señaris became the director in 2004 of the La Salle Foundation's Natural History Museum (Spanish: Museo de historia natural La Salle - MhnLS) in Caracas.[1]

Señaris has erected two genera (including Tepuihyla mentioned above) and described several species new to science. In many cases Señaris collaborated with two other herpetologists, José Ayarzagüena and Stefan Gorzula.[5]

Honours

Eponyms

In recognition of her "contributions to the knowledge of centrolenid diversity and morphology" she has had a genus of glass frog, Celsiella, named after her nickname which is Celsi.[6]

Legacy

She has described a number of taxa, in particular amphibians[7] but also a few reptiles.[8]

Genera

Species
The pebble toad — Oreophrynella nigra — has been observed to roll itself into a ball (pebble) and to throw itself down inclines to avoid tarantula spiders.[9]

References
  1. Bo Beolens; Michael Watkins; Michael Grayson (22 April 2013). The Eponym Dictionary of Amphibians. Pelagic Publishing. p. 40. ISBN 978-1-907807-44-2.
  2. Tepui. WWF.
  3. The Lost World, Conan Doyle's novel featuring living dinosaurs, may have been inspired by these mountains.
  4. Salerno, P. E.; Ron, S. R.; Señaris, J. C.; Rojas-Runjaic, F. J. M.; Noonan, B. P.; Cannatella, D. C. (2012). "Ancient tepui summits harbor young rather than old lineages of endemic frogs". Evolution. 66 (10): 3000–3013. doi:10.1111/j.1558-5646.2012.01666.x. PMID 23025594. S2CID 205783918.
  5. José Ayarzagüena Sanz (1952–2011) was a Spanish herpetologist who specialised in Venezuelan crocodiles as well as frogs. Stefan Jan Filip Gorzula is a British-trained American. Bo Beolens; Michael Watkins; Michael Grayson (22 April 2013). The Eponym Dictionary of Amphibians. Pelagic Publishing. p. 81. ISBN 978-1-907807-44-2.
  6. Guayasamin, Juan Manuel; Castroviejo-Fisher, Santiago; Trueb, Linda; Ayarzagüena, José; Rada, Marco; Vilà, Carles (2009). "Phylogenetic systematics of glassfrogs (Amphibia: Centrolenidae) and their sister taxon Allophryne ruthveni". Zootaxa. 2100: 41. doi:10.11646/zootaxa.2220.1.2.
  7. Frost, Darrel R. (2015). "Amphibian Species of the World: an Online Reference. Version 6.0". American Museum of Natural History. Retrieved 7 November 2015.
  8. "The Reptile Database". Retrieved 7 November 2015.
  9. Pebble toad's rock and roll life, Matt Walker, BBC, 15 October 2009, Retrieved 6 November 2015
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