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Around 60% of all species of primates in the world are holding in Brazil, Madagascar, Indonesia and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Consequently, these countries concentrates the greatest average    of  primate species threatened, endangered, or critically endangered, according to parameters established  by the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. There are 149 species and subspecies of primates in Brazil. They lived in their habitats close to various native human groups long before the arrival of first European  explorers in the 16 th century. Given their sociability, groups of monkeys drew attention to hunters and naturalists  and some species, as the Alouatta guariba ,  were repeatedly described  by colonists, naturalists and travelers who testimonied how they  used plants to self-medication without delay after being shot. The link available below offers an amazing overview of the most interesting species of Brazilian

An early register of Brazilian biodiversity

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Regarding research methods, I literally considered all kinds of historical records in which I  was able to identify “the animal as subject” in the Brazilian colonial context. No matter what the approach, I just simply sought evidence of their presence, and from there proceeded to organize the narratives I encountered.  In this sense, the subjects of my chapter were not outlined 'a priori' but were the result of prevailing contexts of human-animal interactions. As my research progressed, I found particular authors who had made the most decisive contributions, highlighting some distinctive attitudes of a period.  This was the case of the Portuguese settler, Gabriel Soares de Souza, author of an early assessment of Brazilian natural resources, published in Portugal in 1587.  His work covered the Brazilian coastal region, from the Amazon river, in the north, to the Prata River, in the south (see the map), an area of some 8,5 thousand of kilometers.  His treatise also provide

Welcome!

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Welcome! The idea of creating this blog was designed by Miriam Adelman and myself as an opportunity to offering a network of interaction with the donors who have demonstrated their interest and trust in our project of producing a new, revised and English language version of my book - a work in progress at this very moment. Since you all will be kept waiting for some months, until the book is finally launched by the White Horse Press, we felt the need to create a dynamic channel of dialogue between us, regarding the book’s timely subject – human/animal relations in Brazil, past and present – as an enjoyable common experience to be shared over this period. In fact, our goals have now gone beyond our initial intentions, leading to a (re) collection of the feelings, mindsets, enthusiams, confidences and intents which were part of the trajectory that led to this book. Furthermore, the broad and extensive subject of my research poses the need for some additional clarification, parti