EDSON LOPES JRSpecies from the Butantan Collection: fire protection EDSON LOPES JR
The Butantan Institute has opened its Special Collections Zoological Laboratory (LECZ). The building will house the institution’s collections of specimens of reptiles, amphibians, arachnids and insects. The investment is R$5.5 million, R$2.5 million of which was funded by FAPESP to upgrade the facilities and purchase equipment. The old building that housed the collections was damaged by fire in 2010, resulting in the loss of 80% of the collection of snakes and several specimens of arachnids. The new building, with an area of 1.6 million square meters, has two floors with fire prevention systems and systems that drain flammable liquids out of the building. The collections are being displayed on sliding shelves made of cast iron, just as in libraries. The expectation is that, when the collections are completed, there will be 620,000 animals, consisting of 400,000 arachnids 150,000 acaris (such as mites and ticks), 50,000 millipedes (such as centipedes) and 20,000 snakes. Jorge Kalil, Director of the Butantan Institute, told Agência FAPESP, “we are placing the animals in the collections and are reviewing them specimen by specimen and recataloging them so we can conduct specific research projects [on new specimens],”
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