Fire in Instituto Butantan

This is a sad day for tarantula taxonomy:

Fire destroys 500 000 samples from the Instituto Butantan

Oh my God... I got the goosebumps reading this. I can believe something like this happened. Really. Google translator isn't very good, so i'll translate it here in english.


Fire destroys more than 500 000 samples of Butantan Institute.
The biggest collection of snakes in the world on tropics, as well as spiders and scorpions were lost.

May 15, 11:30 AM

SÃO PAULO - A fire occurred this saturday morning, 15, at the reptile laboratory of Instituto Butantan, in the west zone of São Paulo, destroying thousands of specimens of snakes and arachnids, including animals species not yet described by scientists. No animal were alive before the fire.

All the Butantan's snake collection - about 85 000 pieces, the world's biggest collection of animals in the tropics area - was lost in the fire. Hundreds of reptile specimens collected by biologists weren't even described yet. Between the arachnids - particularly spiders and scorpions -, 450 thousand specimens were lost, and thousands among them weren't described yet by scientists of the institute.

At first it was thought that, along with the animals preserved in the laboratory, the registry books which contained the records of samples collecting, their characteristics and their conditions were also lost. Later it was confirmed they were saved. The fire started between 7 and 8 AM, and was controlled by 10 AM by ten firetrucks and 50 men from the Fire Department. There were no people injured.

Expertise will be made locally and it is expected that the result is released in 30 days. But it is suspected that the fire was caused by a short circuit. Overnight the master key was turned off for maintaince of the power grid. The fire started when the power was turned back on in the morning.

Irreplaceable heritage

The director of the Instituto Butantan, Otavio Azevedo Mercadante, told the Estadao that "the damage was too great." "The material damage, you recover. The scientific, no." For herpetologist - a specialist in reptiles and amphibians - Miguel Rodrigues, University of São Paulo (USP), the fire was a disaster of incalculable proportions. "We lost an irreplaceable heritage of the biological history of the country", says.

The Butantan Institute was created in 1898, spurred by an outbreak of bubonic plague in the port of Santos, and his creation was made official in 1901. Thirteen years later, the Main Building of the Institute was opened. It is a center for production of vaccines and antivenom, and important biomedical research, dependent on the government of Sao Paulo.

The lab works on several projects on the use of reptile's venom, which were being used to fight diseases such as leishmaniasis and Chagas evil. Recently, the Butantan has also been the public organ responsible for production of influenza H1N1 vaccine, from samples provided by the French laboratory Sanofi Pasteur.


Sorry if it isn't perfect, but is better than google

Very tragic. Looks like near total destruction.

Ollie

Thanks man, I appreciate the translation. Still sad though.

Wow, that is horrible! I can only imagine the unique specimens that were lost. I hope the documentation saved at least carried their information.

Thanks for the re-translation, I was wondering what 'evil cartoons' was!

Zoltan, you're a mod? Is that new? Congrats to that

Zoltan said:

Thanks man, I appreciate the translation. Still sad though.

Click to expand...

I'm digesting it now. I'm truly surprised with how sad, how down i am now. Really, i can't remember the last time i felt so down with something. I won't be surprised if i start crying. Man... I just can't assimilate it. Very very very sad.

Radamanthys said:

I'm digesting it now. I'm truly surprised with how sad, how down i am now. Really, i can't remember the last time i felt so down with something. I won't be surprised if i start crying. Man... I just can't assimilate it. Very very very sad.

Click to expand...

Yeah, seriously. All that material, part of which was collected possibly more than a hundred years ago, all that work... It is of humongous scientific value, just gone.

And thanks jbm.

Update

I just got the information that some microscopes, loaned material, books and computers were saved.

Is there anything we can do to help them? I know its not much but I wouldnt mind donating some money or setting something up to help them restart that collection. They really do contribute a ton to our hobby. Even if we just started off by getting some of the more basic species and genus back into their hands I dont see it doing anything but helping the hobby. Also do we know if they had some kind of insurance on the collection Im sure it was worth millions?

Update

Zoltan said:

I just got the information that some microscopes, loaned material, books and computers were saved.

Click to expand...

Yeah, those were not in the building hit by the fire, as the live animals. Some books although were lost. There is a suspect that some of the digital data were also lost. You see, there was a lot of data to digitalize. So, not all the data was in computers.

The numbers of the tragedy:

535 000
aproximate number of specimens lost in the fire.

85 000
snakes

450 000
spiders and scorpions

120 years
took to create the collection, consumed by the fire in half an hour

1.200°C (2200ºF)
Is the estimate temperature inside the building during the fire

I'm kinda stunned by how the Brazilian press is giving little attention to this... But i'm sure that they will create some way for people to help them. It all depends on the government, really. I'll keep you informed guys. I don't have any information on insurance or anything like that. But the building was full of formaldehyde and ethanol, and there was no fire proof system. The project of the fireproof system was sent by the director of the institute to the FAPESP (Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo - Foundation for Research Support of São Paulo state) and was waiting approval for some time now. Lame.

I saw an interview with the director and the curator in the TV. They were crying like babies, just crying outloud. Heart breaking...

If anyone works in any organ like this, that have specimens to donate or share, please contact Butantan. Access www.butantan.gov.br and go to the bottom of the page. You'll find the webmail in the right corner, among other portuguese words

Wow. That... really sucks. What a blow to the herp and arachnid world. With all that formaldehyde and/or alcohol (specimen jars) it's no surprise the fire was so intense though.

Did I mention that this sucks? Bummer doesn't really describe it...

Hi,

just wanted to add some (maybe useful) information:
In a personal face-to-face conversation with Sylvia Lucas she confirmed that the entire Chilopoda material could be saved and did not burn down for whatever strange reason.

I hope someone can confirm.

At least there is a little hope.

Regards
Turgut

Update:

The rebuilding of the institute is already in the works.

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0_0 That is horrible, specially the species which havn't even been described yet!

Steve Nunn told me Bertani got his work on revisions sort of "on hold" due to this fire.

Really sad