Explore the vast range of titles available.

Taxonomic and geographic misattributions in biodiversity inventories remain a pressing issue in biogeographical research, particularly in regions with overlapping or similar place names. The Republic of Cabo Verde (also known as Cabo Verde Islands) and the Cape Verde Peninsula (Senegal) exemplify this challenge, where historical and recent studies have struggled to provide accurate species distributions due to unverified, erroneous and ambiguous records. This underscores the necessity of comprehensive, reliable datasets to delineate species occurrences across these distinct geographic areas. This study provides a rigorously verified inventory of coastal fish species occurring within the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) of the Republic of Cabo Verde, focusing on depths between 0 and 200 metres. By delineating the faunal composition specific to Cabo Verde, this work addresses the recurrent confusion with species lists referencing the Cape Verde Peninsula (Senegal). A total of 393 species, distributed among 125 families and 40 orders, is documented, offering an invaluable resource for refining biodiversity assessments and providing information forconservation strategies in this biogeographically unique region. Two species, Thalassoma newtoni (Osório, 1891) and Diodon eydouxii Brisout de Barneville, 1846, are reported for the first time from Cabo Verde in this paper.

The last Pinniped species update was in 2010, as part of the list of the terrestrial and marine biota from the Azores. This list includes a chapter dedicated to marine mammals, based on previously published bibliography. No new species were added since that list was publlished. However, there were new occurrences since the last update.

The marine waters around the Azores archipelago have been studied for quite a long time. Deeper areas, however, were historically poorly accessible and only now previously unreported species are recorded regularly. Our monitoring efforts of the Azorean ichthyofauna have recently revealed two cases of indirect evidence of the presence of a cookiecutter shark ( Isistius sp.). The evidence, documented photographically, was in the form of explicit bite marks on two dolphins representing two separate species: the Atlantic spotted dolphin, Stenella frontalis (Cuvier, 1829) and the short-beaked common dolphin, Delphinus delphis Linnaeus, 1758. The two dolphins swam close to Terceira Island. No specimens have yet been collected. The shape, and size of the wounds observed suggest that they were inflicted by a cookiecutter shark. The fresh state of the injuries suggests they were sustained recently in the proximity of the Azores.

In recent years Azorean fishermen reported the presence of the smalltooth sand tiger shark, Odontaspis ferox (Risso, 1810), a very rare demersal shark species, associated with insular shelves and slopes, with occasional incursions into shallow waters and of poorly known biology and ecology. There are fourteen new records of this species, between 1996 and 2014, captured by spearfishing, harpoons, hand lines, or entangled in fishing gear in the Azores. These records were analysed and complemented with fishermen interviews, providing new locations and new biological data for this species. Also, specimens photographs were studied and post-mortem analysis were carefully carried out in one individual. This species is rare and captured only as bycatch in shallow waters. More detailed information on this species is critically needed in order to assess its conservation status and implement management guidelines. Bycatch statistics are crucial in this respect.

Social deep-diving odontocetes face the challenge of balancing near-surface proximity to oxygen and group members with foraging in the deep sea. Individuals rely on conspecifics for critical life functions, such as predator defence, but disperse during foraging to feed individually. To understand the role of social acoustic mediation during foraging in deep-diving toothed whales, we investigated the context of social burst-pulse call production in Risso’s dolphin ( Grampus griseus ) using biologgers. Dolphins produced context-specific burst pulses predominantly during daytime foraging, preceding or following foraging dives and in the early descent of daytime deep dives. Individuals applied differential short and long burst-pulse calls intended for either near-surface receivers (horizontal transmission) or deep-foraging receivers (vertical transmission). Our results show that deep-diving toothed whales are reliant on acoustic communication during certain foraging contexts, to relay information including foraging conditions or an individual’s location. Moreover, they accentuate the importance of maintaining acoustic contact with conspecifics, specifically when dispersed during deeper foraging. It also signifies that our oceanic top predators may be specifically vulnerable to the current strong increase in anthropogenic noise. Potential masking of the signals from group members communicating at a distance could undermine their social cohesion, and hence their capacity to maintain vital life functions.

Six species of marine turtles occur in the Azores Archipelago. The loggerhead, Caretta caretta (Linnaeus, 1758), is by far the most common species and is being constantly monitored and tagged by a joint project between the University of the Azores and the University of Florida since 1989. With the implementation of the tuna fishery observers (for dolphin safe seals), an increment of sea turtle reports has been verified as expected. The leather back turtle, Dermochelys coriacea (Vandelli, 1761) is the second most observed species in the Azores' EEZ, a fact probably also linked to the tuna fishery observation programme. All other species are occasional/vagrant albeit the green turtle, Chelonia mydas (Linnaeus, 1758) is more commonly seen than the others. Historically, sea turtles were occasionally taken for food in specific fishing villages and ports. Since 1986, sea turtles, as well as all marine mammals, are fully protected in the Azores although human-related activities (e.g. plastics, discarded fishing gear) do generate serious injuries and deaths. In this paper, we update sea turtle species' checklist for the Azores and give detailed geographic coordinates on their known occurrences.

Several lists of marine fish from Azores have been published in the past. Most of those publications are difficult to access on line and several were not published in peer-reviewed journals. This checklist updates all the chondrichthyan records for the Azores Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), according to the most recent taxonomic classification of cartilaginous fish, as well as providing information on the conservation status for all species. We also present recent literature data on rare species and recent records for Azores. This is the first comprehensive list of cartilaginous fishes from Azores to be published in the GBIF database.

Since the first published comprehensive checklist of Azorean fishes - covering the whole Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) region - several new records have been published and an updated checklist published in 2010. This new dataset covers all confirmed species of actinopterygians for the Azorean EEZ. In this update, we made corrections to the previous checklists, updated the taxonomy according to the most recent bibliography and added two new species to the Azorean Actinopterygii checklist.

An updated checklist of the Birds of the Azores is presented based on information compiled from Rodrigues et al. (2010) and from the websites, Azores Bird Club. (2014), Aves dos Açores (2014), Azores Bird Sightings (2014) and Vittery (2014), since 2010. The checklist has a total of 414 species, including 38 new species. Almost half of the species and subspecies that occur in the Azores have a Palearctic origin, the remaining ones being essentialy Nearctic and Holarctic species. São Miguel is the island with the highest number of bird species, followed by Terceira, Corvo and Flores islands.

In this contribution we present detailed distribution and abundance data for arthropod species identified during the BALA – B iodiversity of A rthropods from the L aurisilva of the A zores (1999-2004) and BALA2 projects (2010-2011) from 18 native forest fragments in seven of the nine Azorean islands (all excluding Graciosa and Corvo islands, which have no native forest left). Of the total 286 species identified, 81% were captured between 1999 and 2000, a period during which only 39% of all the samples were collected. On average, arthropod richness for each island increased by 10% during the time frame of these projects. The classes Arachnida, Chilopoda and Diplopoda represent the most remarkable cases of new island records, with more than 30% of the records being novelties. This study stresses the need to expand the approaches applied in these projects to other habitats in the Azores, and more importantly to other less surveyed taxonomic groups (e.g. Diptera and Hymenoptera). These steps are fundamental for getting a more accurate assessment of biodiversity in the archipelago.