Estación Biológica de Doñana - CSIC, Anfibios

The Anphibian collections of Doñana Biological Station (EBD) were first established with the donation of the private collections of Prof. JA Valverde, a prominent Spanish zoologist and founder of the Doñana Institution itself. These collections not only presented all mainly species of the Iberian peninsula but also representatives from the fauna of the former Spanish colonies in North Africa and Western Sahara. The collections grew exponentially with the following director, Prof. Javier Castroviejo who was responsible of its enlargement and enormous expansion both in individuals and in localities represented. At present these collections hold above 15.000 specimens belonging to 150 species of about 20 families; most of them well preserved in fluid (ethanol 80%) and with complete information about origin and measurements. Amphibian holdings of the EBD collections come mainly from the Iberian peninsula but also from North Africa, Western Sahara and in lesser extent from other European areas such as Hungary and Italy. Besides, there is an important representation both from African (e.g. Equatorial Guinea) and American (Venezuela, México, Paraguay, Nicaragua and Bolivia) tropical ecosystems. Particularly well represented are remote and poorly known South American areas such as swamp savannahs (Mato Grosso), Tepui table-top mountains and high mist-rainforest of the central Andes (Bolivia) From a systematic point of view, EBD Anphibian holdings have good representations of the families Discoglossidae, Hylidae and Ranidae from Southwestern Iberia and excellent sampling of salamanders from the Cantabrian mountain range. Regarding the African continent, the families Ranidae, Pipidae and Hylidae are quite well represented as well as the neotropical families Bufonidae, Hylidae, Leptodactilidae, Aromobatidae and Dendrobatidae (Boliivia and Paraguay), and Centrolinidae, Leptodactiylidae, Pletodontidae and Microhylidae (Venezuela). Nowadays the complete data set regarding the EBD Amphibian collections is being screened and computerized. In a near future the whole information will be world-wide available through the GBIF free access portal. The dataset currently available on GBIF.ES is one part of the mammal collection, and include the following families: Salamantridae, sirenidae, proteidae, Amphiumidae, Ambystomatidae, Plethodontidae, Gymnophiona, anphibia, anura, caudata, Hylidae, Pipidae, Aromabatidae, Caeciliidae, Cycloramphidae. Note: this dataset was previously orphaned. It has been rescued by ① extracting it from the GBIF.org index (see GBIF Download in External Data) and ② republishing it on this IPT data hosting centre as version 1.0.