INSTRUCTIONS TO AUTHORS
(April 2008)

General Information
The South American Journal of Herpetology (SAJH) is an international journal, published by the Brazilian Society of Herpetology, that aims to provide an effective medium of communication for the international herpetological community. SAJH publishes original contributions on the Biology of Amphibians and Reptiles, covering primarily the fields of systematics, paleontology, evolutionary biology, ecology, natural history, taxonomy, behavior, anatomy, functional morphology, comparative morphology and physiology, ecophysiology, genetics, molecular biology, ontogeny, biogeography, and conservation biology. SAJH also encourages submission of eminently theoretical studies that explore principles and methods on these fields.
All contributions must follow the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature and relevant specimens should be properly curated and deposited in a recognized public or private, non-profit institution. Authors should observe appropriate ethical and legal guidelines and regulations for any study that involve live organisms. Therefore authors are encouraged to indicate in the acknowledgment section proper collecting permits and protocols approved for field and laboratory researches. Tissue samples should be referred to their voucher specimens and all nucleotide sequence data (aligned as well as unaligned) should be submitted to Genbank (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/genebank/) or EMBL (http://www.ebi.ac.uk/) shortly after publication.

Submision of Manuscripts
All the submission and review process is done electronically. Thus manuscripts should be sent electronically only to the Editor (Hussam Zaher, editor@sbherpetologia.org.br).
Manuscripts are considered on the understanding that they have not been published and/or will not appear elsewhere in substantially the same or abbreviated form. The criteria for acceptance of articles are quality and relevance of research, clarity of text, and compliance with the guidelines for manuscript preparation.
All manuscripts should be written in English, using U.S. spelling and grammar conventions, and should include an abstract in English and its translation either in Portuguese or Spanish. Text should be submitted in MS Word (*.doc), preferably for PC, and must include line numbers (see below for specific procedure). Artwork and photographs should be submitted as electronic files, in *.jpg format only. Manuscripts will be assigned to Associate Editors, who in turn will seek two or three reviews of each submission. Once a manuscript is accepted providing changes suggested by the referees, the author is requested to return a revised electronic version and a detailed letter addressing how reviewers’ suggestions were incorporated within two weeks upon receiving the communication by the Associate Editor. Communications regarding acceptance or rejection of manuscripts are made through correspondence with the first or corresponding author only. When the manuscript is accepted for publication, authors will be asked to provide updated electronic files of the text in *.doc, and relevant graphic files produced in high quality *.jpg file (at least 8 cm wide with 350 dpi). Submission of hard copies by mail will not be accepted.

No figures should be embedded in text files.

Proofs
Page-proofs with the revised version will be sent electronically to the first or corresponding author. Page-proofs must be returned to the editor within 48 hours. Failure to return the proof promptly may be interpreted as approval with no changes and/ or may delay publication. Only necessary corrections in proof will be permitted. Once page proof is sent to the author, further alterations and/or significant additions of text are permitted only at the author’s expense or in the form of a brief appendix (“note added in proof”).

Manuscript Form
Authors are requested to pay close attention to the instructions concerning the preparation
of manuscripts. Close adherence to the guidelines will expedite processing of the manuscript, whereas manuscripts deviating from the required form will be returned for revision prior to review.
Manuscripts should not exceed 30 pages of double-spaced typescript on 21 x 29.7 cm (A4 format) paper (Letter format will not be accepted), with wide margins (2.5 cm). The pages of the manuscript should be numbered consecutively. The text must include line numbers, which are activated through the “Page Setup” command of the “File”menu in a Word document (go to “Layout” and activate “Line numbers”). Scientific names should appear in italics. The article should be arranged in the following order: title page, abstracts, body of text, literature cited, appendices, tables and figure captions, tables, and figures. Each of these sections should begin on a new page. All typescript pages must be double-spaced.
Title page. This should include the title with all letters capitalized, author(s) name(s) in small caps, their address(es) (including electronic address), and between 3‑8 Key words in English. Multiauthors manuscripts must identify a corresponding author and address. The title should be concise and, where appropriate, should include mention of families and/or higher taxa. Names of new taxa should not be included in titles.

Example:

How to be arboreal and diurnal and still stay alive: microhabitat use, time of activity, and defense in Neotropical forest snakes

Marcio Martins1,4, Otavio A. V. Marques2 and Ivan Sazima3

1 Departamento de Ecologia, Universidade de São Paulo, 05508‑090, São Paulo, SP, Brazil. E-mail: jararaca@ib.usp.br
2 Laboratório de Herpetologia, Instituto Butantan, Avenida Doutor Vital Brazil, 1500, 05503-900, São Paulo, SP, Brazil. E‑mail: otaviomarques@butantan.gov.br
3 Departamento de Zoologia e Museu de História Natural, Universidade Estadual de Campinas, 13083-970, Campinas, SP, Brazil. E‑mail: isazima@unicamp.br
4 Corresponding author.

Key words: Defense; Habitat; Amazonia; Atlantic Forest; Brazil.

Abstract page. All papers should have an abstract in English followed by its translation in Portuguese or Spanish. The abstract is of great importance as it may be reproduced elsewhere. It should be in a form intelligible if published alone and should summarize the main facts, ideas, and conclusions of the article. Indicative abstracts are strongly discouraged. Include all new taxonomic names for referencing purposes. Abbreviations should be avoided. It should not include references.

Body of text. The main body of the text should include the following sections: Introduction, Material and Methods, Results, Discussion, and Acknowledgments. Primary headings in the text should be in capital letters and centered; the following text should begin on the next line, indented. Secondary headings should be in capital and lowercase letters and flush left; the following text should begin on the next line, indented. Tertiary headings should be in capital and lower case letters, in italics and indented; the following text should be on the same line and separated from the heading by a hyphen.

Literature cited. Citations in the text should be arranged in chronological order first and alphabetical order second. Citation in text should be given as: Silva (1998)…, Silva (1998: 14‑20)…, Silva (1998: figs. 1, 2)…, Silva (1998a, b)…, Silva and Oliveira (1998)…, (Silva, 1998)…, (Rangel, 1890; Silva and Oliveira, 1998a, b; Adams, 2000)…, (H. R. Silva, pers. comm.)…, (Silva et al., 1998), the latter when the paper has three or more authors. The reference need not be cited when author and date are given only as authority for a taxonomic name. The literature section should be arranged strictly alphabetically and given in the following format:

Journal Article – Silva, H. R., H. Oliveira, and S. Rangel. Year. Article title. Journal name, 00: 000‑000. Journal names must be fully spelled out.

Books – Silva, H. R. Year. Book title. Publisher, Place, 000 pp.

Articles in Books – Silva, H. R. Year. Article title; pp. 000‑000. In: H. Oliveira and S. Rangel (Eds.), Book Title. Publisher, Place.

Articles in Larger Works – Silva, H. R. Year. Article title; pp. 000‑000. In: H.
Oliveira and S. Rangel (Eds.), Title of Larger Work. Serial Publication 00. Publisher,
Place.

Dissertations and Theses – Silva, H. R. Year. Dissertation title. Ph.D. dissertation, University, Place, 000 pp.

Appendices, Tables, Figures, Tables and Figure captions. These should be arranged sequentially after the literature section of the manuscript, in the following order: Appendices, table and figure captions (together in the same section), tables, and figures. Each of these sections should begin in a new page.

Appendices. Appendices should be numbered using Roman numerals and must be numbered in the same sequence in which they appear in the text where they are referred as Appendix I, Appendix I‑IV, etc. Use “APPENDIX” in the appendix heading.

Tables. Tables should be on separate pages and they must be numbered in the same sequence in which they appear in the text. Authors are encouraged to indicate where the tables should be placed in the text. They should be comprehensible without reference to the text. Tables should be formatted with horizontal, not vertical, rules. In the text, tables should be referred as Table 1, Tables 2 and 3, Tables 2‑6. Use “TABLE” in the table heading.

Illustrations/Photographs. The number and size of the illustrations must be kept to the minimum required for clarification of the text. Previously published figures cannot be accepted. Figures should be on separate pages and numbered consecutively in the same sequence they appear in the text. Figure captions should be on a separate page preceding the figures. Separate illustrations of a composite figure should be identified by capital letters and referred in the text as so (Fig. 1A). Where possible, letters should be placed in the lower right corner of each illustration of a composite
figure. Hand-written lettering on illustrations are unacceptable. A scale bar should be marked on each figure so that absolute sizes are clearly apparent and any reduction is automatically compensated for. The length of the scale bar should be stated in the caption. On no account should magnification factors (e.g. x7000; x80000) be expressed in the captions. SAJH accepts only figures in electronic version. Hard copies of figures sent by mail will not be accepted. Figures should be submitted in easy to load files in *.pdf, *.ppt or *.jpg format. Final figures should be sent to the
Editor in high quality electronic formats only (*.jpg or *.tif) with at least 8 cm wide and 350 dpi. Figures should be mounted in order to minimize blank areas between separate illustrations. Costs for printing high quality color figures will be in charge of the author(s). For referring to figures in the text, authors should use “(Fig(s).)” and “Figure(s)”, but “FIGURE(S)” in the figure captions and “(fig(s).)” when referring to figures in another paper. Authors are encouraged to indicate where the figures should be placed in the text.

Note: Authors having funds available for publication costs are encouraged to contribute US$ 30.00 per printed article.

For other details of manuscript preparation of format, consult the CBE Style Manual, available from the Council of Science Editors (http://www.councilscienceeditors.org/pubs).