We encourage you to republish Dialogue Earth articles, online or in print, under the Creative Commons license. Please read our republishing guidelines to get started Its energy is known for being clean, but its rapid expansion across Brazil’s Northeast region has not been so polished. In the state of Bahia, the country’s leader in wind generation communities in at least 11 municipalities are experiencing conflicts with companies in the sector some of which have been involved in disputes for more than a decade Some 248 wind farms operate day and night in Bahia, generating 33% of Brazil’s wind energy, with another 196 plants under construction or planned in the state, according to official data a hybrid wind and solar project with 405 turbines promises to be the largest of its kind in the country But as wind power plants have advanced across the state they have coveted lands already occupied by farming villages when cattle breeding expanded into the Caatinga the semi-arid shrubland biome of northeastern Brazil Many of these communities practise a form of commons-based family farming known as fundo de pasto (lit: “pasture fund”) with no delimitations or fencing and on which traditions of their ancestors are maintained – usually without formal land titles These disputes occur mainly in the “wind corridors” areas in the interior of Bahia where the constancy and speed of the winds guarantee ideal conditions for energy generation by the semi-arid climate and by precarious land governance live Eleven municipalities in Bahia state currently have communities with some type of conflict or complaint against large-scale wind developments according to data obtained by the reporter from Articulação Estadual de Fundo e Fecho de Pasto and Central das Associações de Fundo e Fecho de Pasto two organisations representing these commons-farming communities While some traditional communities enter into dispute directly with the companies as families differ on the installation of wind farms Political disorganisation also usually weakens their efforts to obtain land titles and protect their areas “It is a clean energy with dirty methods,” says Marina Rocha an agent of the Pastoral Land Commission (CPT) in Juazeiro “We don’t know of any company that has arrived in the communities in a reasonably honest way.” the CPT is one of the most active organisations in the defence of rural communities’ rights Rocha says she has come across contracts that are generally obscure and have a legal language that rural communities generally do not understand Campo Formoso, a municipality in the north of Bahia state some 450 kilometres from its capital city, Salvador, has 22 fundo de pasto commons, some dating back to the 17th century, according to a mapping done by the Federal University of Bahia (UFBA) alongside the state government The region has already experienced previous economic booms from the mining of precious stones and the cultivation of sisal a plant adapted from the Caatinga that is used in the production of fabrics the great wind power potential of Campo Formoso The municipality’s own logo now features a drawing of turbines atop the Serra de Jacobina But the power plants did not arrive without causing impacts an association representing fundo de pasto farmers in a community called Fazenda Quina signed a contract with multinational CGN Brazil Energy for the installation of three turbines on a site where 12 families live The company is a subsidiary of CGN Energy International CGN Brazil Energy was starting to install what became the Complexo Eólico Morrinhos a wind farm complex consisting of six units with a total installed capacity of 180 megawatts “As entrepreneurs in the sector generally do not own land in rural Brazil long-term leases are the most common way of accessing land for the installation of turbines It happens that in most areas of wind energy potential in the northeast there are peasants many of them with traditional ways of life,” explains Carolina Ribeiro a professor at the Federal University of Parnaíba Delta (UFDPar) in the state of Piauí who studied the conflicts experienced by communities in Brotas de Macaúbas Although he admits that the monthly payment received by the community – on average 4,500 reais (US$840) – helps in the improvement of community infrastructure president of the Fazenda Quina association complains about the lack of transparency on the part of the company The agreed upon monthly payment is 1.5% of the turbines’ energy generation but the community does not know how the calculation is made whether it is based on the gross or net value of energy production they say that this information is not disclosed We don’t know how much they produce and how they market the energy,” Salvo complains The Brazilian office of CGN Brazil Energy told Diálogo Chino that it has a WhatsApp contact for tenants to communicate with it and that it is working on a tool to make its wind generation data available The company did not accept an interview and commented that it does not publicly comment on commercial issues related to contracts it signs with individuals out of respect for the group’s compliance and confidentiality policies the main characteristic of fundo de pasto communities is their occupation and use of communal areas they hold the titles to land occupied by descendants of black and indigenous communities and form agricultural settlements in areas without fences – the so-called solta or “loose” land that extends behind their houses This strategy guarantees the survival of the animals in the dry Caatinga where rainfall is naturally irregular and river flows intermittent The communities have learnt to give more space for the animals to graze in search of food and water on greener patches UFBA’s mapping identified 585 pasture commons associations and 1,092 communities linked to them in Bahia “This number does not represent the totality of communities but only those that we were able to identify,” says Guiomar Germani She believes that the number could be much higher no land title has been issued to such communities it becomes clearer that the state is acting not to meet the historical demand [to grant titles to squatting communities] but to the interests of the private sector,” criticises Germani Germani warns about the introduction of a legal norm favouring energy companies signed by the state government and the state Attorney General’s office in 2020 the patrimony of public lands to the management of wind farms,” she says An assessment by the Association of Rural Workers of Bahia (AATR) cites controversial points in the ruling such as the fact that the wind energy company can select the area of interest and negotiate it directly with the state disregarding the right of communities to prior consultation something guaranteed by Convention 169 of the International Labour Organisation the legal norm does not define criteria of environmental protection of the Caatinga or of the cultural heritage with which companies should comply when installing wind complexes Also in Campo Formoso and neighbouring Fazenda Quina the Borda da Mata fundo de pasto community has not signed a contract despite harassment by wind firms over its territory since 2011 says that at that time he took the document proposed by the company and his lawyer detected that 40% of the clauses threatened the rights of the community which they intend to present if wind farms knock on their door once again Cruz says he is not against the development of the cleaner energy mix “is the misleading way wind farms arrive in the communities selling illusions and talking only about the money without clarifying about the contract.” 30 families live off the agro-ecological production of vegetables The “loose” area is preserved as a reserve for the Caatinga’s natural vegetation where typical cacti flourish in the trovoadas (rainy season) and thorny bushes impede passage through the forest many companies are taking over land and harming our people,” Cruz says The Brazilian Wind Energy Association (Abeeólica) which represents 120 companies in the industry recognises that the sector is growing very fast and needs to accelerate its development of sustainable standards “We have noticed some loopholes in regulation but we are committed to mitigating the impacts with the creation of a best practices guide as well as a sustainability seal,” the association’s president adherence to socio-environmental rules for certification will be voluntary The executive says that the transfer of 1.5% of the proceeds from generation has been accepted by communities reiterating that it is the same percentage paid by oil royalties in Brazilian municipalities the industry pays 2,000 reais [US$375] per turbine per month so I don’t think this is the problem,” Gannoum says the complaints are about transparency in generation accounts According to fundo de pasto leaders in Campo Formoso the monthly amount paid per turbine is around 1,500 reais (US$280) Values and forms of payment tend to vary from municipality to municipality A year after the federal government’s first auction to exclusively contract wind power in 2009 Companhia Hidrelétrica do São Francisco (Chesf) Brazil’s largest electricity generation company began construction of its first wind farm in Bahia The Casa Nova I power plant was announced as the largest in the country and marked Chesf’s entry into the renewable sector Four years later, however, the financial crisis of the Argentine wind turbine manufacturer IMPSA, which was the leader of the consortium, resulted in the works being paralysed 30 unfinished turbines remain abandoned at the site The theft of copper wires from the structures has brought violence to the region 22 families live among these environmental liabilities were not removed from the area and continue to obstruct paths between communities and the grazing of animals “They no longer came and when the gate was locked we would not have accepted the work,” says farmer Jessé de Souza Alves Souza receives 500 reais (US$94) monthly in rent for the land from Chesf and complains about the devastation caused by the earth moving on the site He estimates that Casa Nova I knocked down about 50 of the 300 hectares of native vegetation belonging to the community but they [the companies] don’t do right when they come here,” laments the farmer and the whole mess was left there.” Chesf did not respond to queries about environmental liabilities Casa Nova is a Bahia municipality where 86% of the population is vulnerable to poverty and which has a history of violent rural conflicts. In 1978, families from the pasture commons of the Areia Grande community armed themselves and faced Camaragibe an agribusiness company accused of land grabbing The squatters expelled the hired guns of the company Farmer Vaneide dos Santos, president of the fundo de pasto association for the communities of Garapa and Baraúna, was a child and lived in Areia Grande at the time of the dispute. Also as a child, her family was forcibly relocated for the construction of the Sobradinho dam, which evicted 72,000 people from their homes and flooded seven municipalities She harbours traumas from such large energy ventures “The companies do not come to bring benefits “I have been undisturbed since I left Areia Grande eight kilometres from one of the construction sites of the Oitis Wind Farm Spanish multinational Iberdrola is installing two of the 12 wind farms that began operating this year With funding from the European Investment Bank the power generation of the 12 plants will be connected to the national grid The company will focus on selling the production in the free energy market to which Brazilian households – and most companies – still do not have access will not bring any energy security to her backyard let alone cheaper energy for the community in Garapa and Santos is still trying to sign up for the social energy tariff as she struggles to pay the 200 reais (US$37) monthly bills but the energy was low and was only enough for essential tasks such as keeping the refrigerator running Some of the world’s most modern turbines have arrived in Casa Nova while families living next door still face energy insecurity “complies with all procedures provided for in Brazilian environmental legislation and regulation which demonstrates its commitment to sustainable development and respect for society.” Vaneide Santos’ family is one of five in the association who oppose the project “The families who are in agreement with them don’t have much information about how companies act in Brazil,” Santos comments No one in their community, Garapa, has a land title. They do not have title to the fundo de pasto communal areas, nor to the individual areas, private to each family. Lilian Caramel is an independent journalist based in São Paulo whose work focuses on the agricultural sector Select from our bespoke newsletters for news best suited to you We’ve sent you an email with a confirmation link 我们向您的邮箱发送了一封确认邮件，请点击邮件中的确认链接。如果您未收到该邮件，请查看垃圾邮件。 If you would like more information about the terms of our republication policy or permission to use content, please write to us: [email protected] We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. By continuing to use our site, you are agreeing to our use of cookies. Read our privacy and cookies policy for further information Dialogue Earth uses cookies to provide you with the best user experience possible Cookie information is stored in your browser It allows us to recognise you when you return to Dialogue Earth and helps us to understand which sections of the website you find useful Required Cookies should be enabled at all times so that we can save your preferences for cookie settings Dialogue Earth - Dialogue Earth is an independent organisation dedicated to promoting a common understanding of the world's urgent environmental challenges. Read our privacy policy Cloudflare - Cloudflare is a service used for the purposes of increasing the security and performance of web sites and services. Read Cloudflare's privacy policy and terms of service Dialogue Earth uses several functional cookies to collect anonymous information such as the number of site visitors and the most popular pages Keeping these cookies enabled helps us to improve our website Google Analytics - The Google Analytics cookies are used to gather anonymous information about how you use our websites. We use this information to improve our sites and report on the reach of our content. Read Google's privacy policy and terms of service This website uses the following additional cookies: execute and analyze marketing programs with greater ease and efficiency while enabling publishers to maximize their returns from online advertising Note that you may see cookies placed by Google for advertising under the Google.com or DoubleClick.net domains Twitter - Twitter is a real-time information network that connects you to the latest stories opinions and news about what you find interesting Simply find the accounts you find compelling and follow the conversations Linkedin - LinkedIn is a business- and employment-oriented social networking service that operates via websites and mobile apps Hemiauchenia mirim lived 20,000 years ago and was related to the guanaco a team of paleontologists from the Pontifical Catholic University of Minas Gerais (PUC-MG) described fossil fragments of a camelid found in Campo Formoso The researchers said it was the prehistoric remains of an example of the current guanaco (Lama guanicoe) a type of wild llama that lives in the Andes and Patagonia a recent study suggests  reclassifying the material these parts of the skeleton belong to a new extinct species of camelid mirim would have been a close relative of the guanaco hemi means half and auchenia means long neck The name of the species refers to its reduced size compared to the other species of the genus With an average size of 1.5 meters and around 100 kilos mirim would be one of the smallest known forms of camelid in South America but a reclassification such as this has important implications for understanding what the environment was like in the Brazilian Intertropical Region—an area that covers the Northeast and Rio de Janeiro—during the late Pleistocene This geological age spans from between 129,000 and 11,700 years ago Its end is marked by the conclusion of the last known ice age guanacos live in extremely dry and cold zones where grasses are predominant It is a different habitat from the climate and vegetation found in the Brazilian Intertropical Region today the camelid fossil from Bahia would be an indicator that the environment there would have been arid and with much lower temperatures than at present,” says Argentine paleontologist Mario Cozzuol from the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG) coauthor of the scientific article that advocates the reclassification of the material published in April in the Journal of Quaternary Science We do not know of fossils of other animals that support such a natural scenario in this region at the end of the Pleistocene.” All known species of the genus Hemiauchenia have been extinct for at least 12,000 years But there is paleontological evidence that they lived in more diverse environments than the guanacos hot areas with shrubby vegetation from north to south of the Americas the climate and vegetation in the Brazilian Intertropical Region at the end of the Pleistocene were not very different from the current conditions a scenario more compatible with a camelid capable of establishing itself in different types of habitats To propose the reclassification of the material the authors of the new study dated the jaw of the fossil from Campo Formoso using the carbon-14 method and compared its tibia and femur bones with those from examples of guanacos from collections in the Natural Science Museum at PUC-MG and the La Plata Museum Together with biologists Mário André Trindade Dantas from the Federal University of Bahia (UFBA) a master’s student under his supervision at UFMG Cozzuol also inferred the basic composition of the plant diet of the ancient camelid from the Northeast by identifying an isotopic ratio called delta carbon-13 This index reflects the existing proportion between two different forms of carbon atoms the rare and heavy 13C and the light and abundant 12C Luciano Vilaboim / Natural Science Museum at PUC-MGFemur of a Hemiauchenia mirim (light-colored bone) compared with the Paleolama major another extinct species of CamelidaeLuciano Vilaboim / Natural Science Museum at PUC-MG The team analyzed the enamel from the teeth one of the organic materials that stores these forms of carbon and calculated the index it is possible to deduce what type of plant was preferentially consumed whether it was grasses or more woody plants The isotopic data suggests that the specimen of H primarily ate branches and leaves from shrubs “These analyses indicate not only what the animal ate but also the type of food available in its habitat,” explains Cozzuol By eating the leaves and branches of shrubs the small camelid would have lived with much larger animals of the extinct megafauna Jaguars and saber-toothed tigers may have been their predators During this period there was an enormous camelid (now extinct) in South America including in the Lagoa Santa region of Minas Gerais As more fossils of the genus Hemiauchenia have been found in North America the researchers consider that these camelids must have come from there and migrated south during the Great American Interchange the Isthmus of Panama formed because of tectonic activity and became a natural bridge between the two great and previously unconnected blocks of the Americas many species of fauna passed from one part of the continent to the other from the Federal University of Recôncavo Baiano (UFRB) the reclassification of the fossil from Bahia shows the importance of reexamining pieces from old collections “The taxonomic classification of the genus Hemiauchenia is still a little confusing and is based on the analysis of very fragmented materials,” says the researcher but did not take part in the work of the group from UFMG “There are various species of which we only know the teeth or a bone from the skull particularly the species from North America.” In principle Scherer does not disagree with the proposal to create a new species to designate the material from Campo Formoso “But it would be necessary to compare it with an even larger collection of fossils to better support the proposition made,” ponders the paleontologist from UFRB Scientific article GRECO, M. C. et al. A new species of small Camelidae from the Late Pleistocene of Brazil © Revista Pesquisa FAPESP - All rights reserved Works are under way to add further 29.4 MW of power to the Delfina wind farm This is a testament to EGP’s expansion in Brazil where it’s already the nation’s biggest solar and wind energy operator in terms of installed power and power plants in its portfolio Você está usando um navegador antigo e que não tem suporte a muitas de nossas funcionalidades . Por favor faça a atualizaçãor para uma melhor experiência Stay on top of everything Braskem is doing You can change your cookie settings by turning on or off analytical and third-party cookies right here. You cannot turn-off strictly necessary cookies. You can find out more about cookies aqui Please note that some features of the website will not work without cookies Please press and hold the button until it turns completely green If you believe this is an error, please contact our support team 147.45.197.102 : 44122e15-bf8b-4ad1-88e4-92105e85 the 29.4 MW expansion to the Delfina wind farm is online Yet another testament of Enel Green Power’s commitment towards the country’s sustainable development reasserting our role as the top operators in wind and solar energy Brazilian multinational mining corporation Vale the world’s largest producer of iron ore and nickel has signed a long-term energy supply contract with renewables provider Casa dos Ventos The contract will see Vale draw from energy produced at the Folha Larga Sul wind farm in Campo Formoso The project is expected to start commercial operations in 2020 and will have an installed capacity of 151.2 MW The 23-year long contract represents a step forward in Vale’s stated goal of achieving 100% self-generation of electricity in Brazil by 2030 View More Subscribe Paleontologists reconstruct the versatile lifestyle of Cartelles coimbrafilhoi the largest simian ever to inhabit the continent Sandro CastelliMore than 15,000 years ago the area that is now Brazil was home to a monkey twice as large as the muriqui the largest monkey living today in the New World Evidence of the existence of this supermonkey of the Americas can be seen in a nearly complete fossil skeleton discovered in 1992 in a cave in the municipality of Campo Formoso Described by paleontologist Cástor Cartelle who is now a researcher at Pontifical Catholic University of Minas Gerais (PUC-Minas) the supermonkey fossil was examined in detail more recently by Lauren Halenar and Alfred Rosenberger paleontologists at the City University of New York (CUNY) Halenar and Rosenberger determined that the species—this year given the name Cartelles coimbrafilhoi—explored the forest floor much like a chimpanzee could climb trees and hang from branches with the same skill Other members of this family are the howler monkey the big-bellied woolly monkey and the muriqui “Cartelles probably moved and behaved unlike any other species of New World monkey living today,” Halenar says the Cartelles coimbrafilhoi fossil is of key importance in reconstructing the little-known evolutionary history of the monkeys of this region The classification of this fossil as a new species—actually genus and species—brings to four the number of now-extinct monkey species that lived in South America in the late Pleistocene such as those found in recent years by Rosenberger and colleagues in underwater caves in the Dominican Republic Another important piece of the puzzle is the monkey found in Campo Formoso in 1992 while exploring a small section of the Toca da Boa Vista cave system which at 100 kilometers long is considered the largest cave in the Southern hemisphere a team of speliologists found one of the skeletons and informed Cartelle and his group They found two fossil monkey skeletons that were fairly complete The animals likely lived in fields and forests around the cave sometime between 360,000 and 15,000 years ago at the end of the geological period known as the Pleistocene their carcasses were probably swept into the cave by torrents of rushing water “Finding a nearly complete skeleton from any taxon [group of organisms] is very rare,” Halenar comments The first descriptions of these fossils were published in 1996 in two scientific articles written by Cartelle and American paleontologist Walter Hartwig of Touro University in California The skeleton described in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) did not present much of a challenge Subsequent studies confirmed that the species was a larger version of the present-day spider monkey Although it weighed about 20 kilos (twice that of a spider monkey) Caipora likely moved in a very similar fashion described by Hartwig and Cartelle in Nature The researchers concluded that the most probable hypothesis was that it was a second fossil of a species discovered a century and a half earlier in a cave in the municipality of Lagoa Santa more than 1,200 kilometers from Toca da Boa Vista Danish paleontologist Peter Lund had found a fragment of a femur and a piece of arm bone in Lagoa Santa in 1836 and identified them as the first primate fossils ever discovered Protopithecus brasiliensis is mentioned by Charles Darwin in his classic 1859 work and more recent estimates suggest that it weighed as much as 24 kilos Ana Paula CamposNevertheless Cartelle says he had always suspected that some confirmation was needed as to whether the two fossils were really Protopithecus He and Hartwig had compared the skeleton from Toca da Boa Vista with photos of the Protopithecus brasiliensis fragments kept at the Natural History Museum of Denmark The two researchers had noticed small differences between the fossils but interpreted them as natural variations among individuals of the same species “He and I both thought we would go to Denmark some day for a better look,” says Cartelle who has not yet had the opportunity to make the trip The hypothetical Protopithecus from Toca da Boa Vista also had a very odd combination of features During her doctoral studies completed in 2005 biologist Patrícia Guedes of the National Museum at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro concluded that the fossil’s dentition showed characteristics of two subfamilies of Atelidae: Alouattinae and Atelinae She also observed that the shape of the skull was similar to that of the other Alouattinae the subfamily in which howler monkeys are classified while their teeth looked more like those of the subfamily Atelinae the big-bellied woolly monkey and the muriqui belong Other studies of the skull and the rest of the body also suggested that the species had a mixture of features of those two subfamilies separated more than 12.9 million years ago To attempt to resolve these contradictions that she devote her thesis to fully examining the P brasiliensis fossils from Lagoa Santa and Toca da Boa Vista Over the course of a few weeks spent in Copenhagen and Belo Horizonte she measured the shapes and dimensions of the fossilized bones and then compared them with the bones of hundreds of individuals from several species of monkeys currently in the collection of the American Museum of Natural History in New York The objective was to determine where the fossils fit in the phylogenetic tree of monkeys and to deduce how they moved “We inferred the function of the elements of skeletons of extinct species by comparing the shape of their bones with those of living species,” Halenar explains “Halenar immediately noticed that some of the bones were anatomically very different,” Rosenberger recalls In an article published in October 2013 in the Journal of Human Evolution Rosenberger and Halenar propose that each of the fossils attributed to Protopithecus brasiliensis actually belongs to a different species Although it is difficult to say anything more comprehensive about it on the basis of two bone fragments Halenar believes that the species looked like a muriqui The skeleton from Toca da Boa Vista was from the same subfamily as howler monkeys but belonged to a different genus That species was given the name Cartelles coimbrafilhoi who has been studying the mammals of the Brazilian Pleistocene for 50 years—at least four extinct species bear his name—and to Adelmar Coimbra-Filho one of the pioneers of Brazilian primatology who took action to save the golden lion tamarin from extinction Halenar estimates that Cartelles coimbrafilhoi weighed 25 to 28 kilos which makes it the biggest of the four species of large monkeys that lived in Pleistocene America coimbrafilhoi measured 1.67 meters from the top of its head to the tip of its tail and the base of its skull and the mandible suggest those of a big-bellied woolly monkey But the general shape of the skull looks like that of a howler monkey including the same large space near the throat that houses the vocal apparatus of these monkeys whose howls that can be heard at a distance of up to five kilometers coimbrafilhoi’s howls were as loud or louder than those of howler monkeys because there is no simple correlation between their size and the intensity of their call The social habits of each species and the environment in which they live also play a role The rest of the skeleton resembles that of a spider monkey The shape of its bones suggests a well-developed musculature Hartwig and Cartelle had already posited that the animal likely felt at home in the treetops some researchers dismissed the idea and suggested that the species lived only on the ground only the smaller species tend to live an arboreal lifestyle since the larger animals are at greater risk of breaking a branch and falling “Most arboreal New World monkeys weigh about 10 kilos,” explains primatologist Stephen Ferrari of the Federal University of Sergipe In addition to being considerably smaller than an orangutan Cartelles coimbrafilhoi may have also been helped by its thick although biomechanical studies are still needed to confirm whether its tail could be used as a fifth prehensile member to enable it to hang from branches and sustain the animal’s full weight as in the case of several extant species of the Atelidae family the bones also indicate that the species had well-developed terrestrial habits “It seems likely that Cartelles’ behavior was more akin to that of present-day chimpanzees which are skillful climbers but spend most of their time on the ground,” Ferrari suggests pointing out that even howler monkeys and muriquis The team headed by primatologist Karen Strier of the University of Wisconsin-Madison recently wrote about the development of terrestrial habits among Northern muriquis living in a protected private reserve in Minas Gerais In an article published in 2012 in Plos One Strier maintains that the behavioral change is linked to an increase in the population which has grown from 60 to 300 individuals in the past 30 years and to the lack of sufficient space for so many monkeys in the reserve so there was an increase in the birth rate although the creatures have also become more vulnerable to predator attacks The four extinct species of Brazilian monkeys—Cartelles coimbrafilhoi Protopithecus brasiliensis and Alouatta mauroi—lived with the megafauna large mammals such as giant sloths and sabre-toothed tigers that inhabited the Americas in the Pleistocene and may have become extinct due to climate change “Large primate species are much more vulnerable to extinction regardless of the cause,” Halenar explains there is no way of knowing whether a particular extant species of monkey is descended from the line of any of these very large animals “The work done by Halenar and Rosenberger shines a spotlight on the dearth of available data on the postcranial morphology of American primates,” Guedes comments “Understanding the variations in morphology of platyrhines [a group that includes New World monkeys with widely separated nostrils that open to the side] is key to hypothesizing relationships among them and to understanding the diversification of these mammals in South America.” Team found two primate fossils just before a new year dawned ADRIANO GAMBARINIPhotographer Adriano Gambarini captured this photo of Cartelle and his two colleagues as they gathered fossils in Toca da Boa Vista in 1992.ADRIANO GAMBARINI The year 1992 had practically come to a close when Cástor Cartelle a paleontologist specializing in extinct sloths made one of the most important discoveries in Brazilian primatology and he and two colleagues had walked for two hours through a labyrinth of tunnels narrow passageways and abysses to reach a large chamber in the Toca da Boa Vista cave the fossils of two of the largest species of monkeys that lived in the Americas in the late Pleistocene “I thought at first that they were a male and a female,” says Cartelle who would later learn that the fossils belonged to different species that had not yet been described four or five members of the Bambuí Speleological Research Group a large team that had been mapping Toca da Boa Vista for several years had begun to explore a section of the cave called the “other world,” spotted the fossils and brought a sample to the camp “Someone—I can’t remember who—brought a skull and showed it to us,” recalls Rodrigo Lopes Ferreira who at the time was a biology student at the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG) working with Cartelle “We saw it was a monkey and we asked them to take us to the place where they’d found it.” one of the rooms in the caveADRIANO GAMBARINI The researchers had a surprise when they came across the fossils on December 30 and their state of preservation was impressive,” he recalls Cartelle and Mauro Ferreira examined the floor of the site collecting everything they could find of the monkey skeletons later described as Caipora bambuiorum and Protopithecus brasiliensis (the latter has now been renamed Cartelles coimbrafilhoi) Replicas of the skeletons will be on display at the PUC-Minas Museum of Natural Science reopening in December 2013 after a 2012 fire the area around Campo Formoso hosted a humid tropical forest that had been created as a result of contact between Atlantic and Amazonian vegetation the heat and dryness of the area were exacerbated by the high temperatures in the cave “We spent a day in Purgatory’s waiting room,” Cartelle comments had a beer or two that afternoon to celebrate Scientific article HALENAR, L. B. and ROSENBERGER, A. L. A closer look at the “Protopithecus” fossil assemblages: new genus and species from Bahia, Brazil 43,000+ global companies doing business in the region 102,000+ key contacts related to companies and projects news and interviews about your industry in English