New occurrences of dragonflies in the Atlantic Forest fragments of Santa Teresa, Espírito Santo, Brazil

Abstract

One of the greatest obstacles to biodiversity conservation is the lack of information to prioritize efforts on practical actions. This lack of information comes mainly from absence of inventories in many areas where few groups have reasonably complete databases. The distribution of the dragonfly fauna of Brazil is little known - only 29% of the Brazilian territory presents data about the richness of Odonata. In this contribution, a database of Odonata species of Santa Teresa Municipality was built, Espírito Santo State, Brazil. The database has 627 specimens registered, 77 species distributed in eight families and thirty-eight genera, forty of these species are common, one endemic of the State of Espírito Santo, and nineteen endemic of Brazil. In relation to the measure of conservation, four species are present in the category Insufficient Data (DD), one present in the Nearly Endangered (NT) category, three species in the Vulnerable category (VU) and one in the category In Danger (EN). Twenty-five species are considered new occurrences for the city. These results suggest that the fauna of the studied region deserves attention and points to the interest in implanting future conservation units in the region of Santa Teresa municipality.