Biologia da tartaruga de água doce Mesoclemmys tuberculata (LUEDERWALDT, 1926)(TESTUDINES:CHELIDA) da Ilha de São Cosme , Pequenos Lençois Maranhenses,Brasi

Abstract

Knowledge of the diet and histology of language is potentially important for clarify the alimentary composition, the arrangement and the cellular morphology, facilitating the understanding of animal biology. In this way, this research aims to to analyze Mesoclemmys' diet, food strategy and morphohistology tuberculata. The collections were carried out on the Island of São Cosme in the Little Lençóis Maranhenses, municipality of Paulino Neves. For capture of the animals was used traps of the type "Fyke nets", active search, trawl and covo. The contents were collected by means of stomach lavage in the period from April 2014 to May. The stomach contents were observed under a microscope stereoscopic; the prey were identified and classified into categories and the volumes. The importance of the different items was quantified through the Food Importance (IIA). Similarity in the diet between the sexes was evaluated through Simplified Morisita index and the food strategy through the Costello Diagram. For morphological analysis of the tongue, samples of the tongue of four species of the species Mesoclemmys tuberculata that were euthanized, these were fixed in 10% formalin and included in paraffin by standard histological technique. The species Mesoclemmys tuberculata has a diet based on animal and benthic items with dominance of Nymph of Odonata (Fo% -49%, Vo% - 45,8%, IIA-0,69) and Mollusk (I% -38% and Vo% -18.5%, IIA -0.21), niche overlap between males and females females, there are no dietary differences between classes of sizes and presents diet specialist with high inter-phenotype component. Histology confirmed the diet data found. The tongue of Mesoclemmys tuberculata histologically is a tongue small with non-keratinized cubic stratified epithelial tissue with few papillae, typical of aquatic carnivorous animals that feed through suction.