The Global South countries are considered biologically far more diverse than those of the Global North, where the most industrialized and wealthy nations are located.
Between 1990 and 2025, more than a thousand new mammal species from 105 countries were scientifically described, and 95% of them were discovered in Global South countries, especially in the tropics, such as Brazil, Madagascar, Indonesia, Peru and certain regions of China.
However, 60% of the holotypes of each of them – the specimens that serve as reference for the scientific description of the new species – are part of the collections of institutions in other countries, such as museums and universities, especially in the Global North, notably in Europe and North America.
In an article published in the journal ‘npj Biodiversity, researchers from several Brazilian universities point out that geopolitical and socioeconomic inequalities continue to determine where the holotypes, of great scientific value, are deposited.
According to the results obtained, only 22% of the Global North endemic species described during the same period have their holotypes housed in the country of origin. However, even in those cases, they were integrated into collections of institutions within the same geopolitical area.
Additionally, more than 90% of mammal holotypes deposited in the Global North came from other countries than the institution that holds them. In the Global South, this percentage is below 8%.
The study also covered other animal groups, with researchers noting that less charismatic groups tend to have more holotypes of new species deposited in the countries where they were discovered.
For freshwater fish, 30% of species described after the year 2000 have holotypes outside the country of origin. In the case of reptiles, half of the species described after 1990 have their holotypes outside the country where they were discovered.
Mário Moura, the study’s first author and a lecturer at the Federal University of Paraíba (UFPB), in Brazil, admits the team’s surprise when confronted with the numbers on mammals.
“Although the first settlers collected biological material from their old colonies, we did not expect to see such high numbers in recent decades,” he notes, quoted in a press release from the São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP), a Brazilian agency supporting scientific research.
Moura also spoke of a “problem of scientific neocolonialism,” which is more pronounced in mammals than in any other group of animals.
“The Global North countries concentrate large museums, funding, scientific infrastructure and international research networks built over centuries. In addition, we identified that colonial history is one of the main factors associated with the concentration of these holotypes in foreign institutions,” explains the researcher in a note from UFPB.
“It is not merely about the physical location of a specimen. Those who control the holotypes also concentrate a significant portion of the scientific authority over those species and over future research involving that biodiversity,” he clarifies.
To minimize the effects of holotype concentration in the Global North, the study proposes actions that help democratize access to biodiversity, strengthening museums and researchers in countries with rich biodiversity, such as repatriation of specimens, digitization of holotypes and the requirement of plans for depositing specimens in scientific journals.
The researchers point to Brazil as one of the good examples. In the last 35 years, 133 new mammal species were described there and 108 (more than 80%) have their respective holotypes in biological collections in the country.
