This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: According to a study by Brazilian scientists published in the journal npj Biodiversity, most new mammal species described over the past 35 years are housed in institutions in countries of the so-called Global North, even though the vast majority were discovered in poor or developing countries in the Southern Hemisphere. The study analyzed 1,116 new mammal species described between 1990 and 2025.
It concluded that 95% of the species were native to the Global South, a group of emerging countries in Latin America, Africa, Asia and the Caribbean with similar socioeconomic characteristics. This group includes Brazil. However, 60% of the species' holotypes (the name given to the specimens that serve as references for the scientific description of the species) are housed primarily in wealthy countries in Europe and North America.
Conversely, only 22% of species native to the North described during the same period have their holotypes stored outside their country of origin, and even then, they are stored in institutions within the same geopolitical domain, which may include countries such as Australia and New Zealand. According to the authors, these results demonstrate the impact of geopolitical and socioeconomic inequalities on scientific activity and biodiversity knowledge. More than 90% of all mammal holotypes stored in the Global North are specimens collected in a different country.
In the Global South, by contrast, less than 8% of mammal holotypes are deposited in countries other than where they were collected. These figures are significantly higher than those for less "charismatic" groups, such as freshwater fish, where 30% of species described after 2000 have holotypes outside their country of origin, and reptiles, where 50% of species described after 1990 are housed outside the country where the animals were discovered. "The mammal figures surprised us.
Even though early colonists collected biological material from their former colonies, we didn't expect to see such high numbers in recent decades. The problem of scientific neocolonialism is more pronounced in mammals than in other animal groups," says Mario Moura, a professor at the Federal University of Paraíba (UFPB) and the first author of the study. Moura is an alumnus of FAPESP's Young Investigator Program and received a fellowship at the Institute of Biology at the State University of Campinas (IB-UNICAMP).
Brazil is among the best-performing countries in the group. The country led in the number of mammal discoveries during the period analyzed, with 133 new species described. Of these holotypes, 108 (more than 80%) remained in national institutions.
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