Author guidelines

The Boletín Chileno de Herpetología (BCH), ISSN 0719-6172, is a free and open access scientific journal. We receive papers all year round, and in order to maximize the impact of papers and make them readily available to readers, they are uploaded to the BCH website upon completion of peer review round as an "accepted" version of the manuscript. In December of each year, the Volume is published containing all the works of the year.

The main language of the BCH is Spanish; however we accept articles in English as long as they include versions of the title and abstract in Spanish.

The Chilean Herpetology Bulletin consists of five sections, which are detailed below.

1. Research articles:

Research articles can correspond to any field of study of Southern American herpetofauna (anatomy, ecology, ethology, revisions, taxonomy, distributional extensions, etc…).

They should include the following sections

• Title (and title in English, or Spanish, depending on language of the article).
• Authors.
• Affiliation of the authors.
• Author's email for correspondence.
• Abstract + Keywords (and in English or Spanish, depending on language of the article). The abstract with a maximum length of 150 words and a maximum of five keywords. Keywords must not be contained in the title.
• Introduction.
• Materials and methods.
• Results.
• Discussion.
• Thanks.
• References.

If providing the title and abstract in another language is difficult, we can do the translation.

There is a limit of 10000 words, but it is always necessary to be as concise as possible to convey the information. There is also a limit of 10 figures and/or tables, as long as all of these are necessary for the manuscript. Additional text, tables and figures may be included as supplementary material.

When submitting an article for review and possible publication in the BCH, authors should suggest at least two reviewers with experience in the subject, including their email addresses. In addition, authors can include names of reviewers who for various reasons should not receive the manuscript.

2. Literature reviews:

Works that do not contain an experimental or scientific methodology, but that carry out a detailed review of the literature of some areas of herpetology in Chile or South America. They can be reviews on 1) Different points of view of a controversial topic, 2) Definition of concepts and unresolved problems of a particular area, 3) Advances or identification of areas of lack of current knowledge, 4) Future developments and projections in some area or 5) The current state of knowledge and a historical review about a particular area.

These manuscripts can be divided into sections according to the different aspects of the manuscript. At a minimum, these works must contain: Title (and title in English), Affiliation, Abstract (and abstract in English/Spanish), Keywords (maximum five), main text divided into sections according to the work, and references.

There is a limit of 13000 words, but it is always necessary to be as concise as possible to convey the information. There is no limit on the number of figures or tables, as long as all of these are necessary for the manuscript. Additional text, tables and figures may be included as supplementary material.

When submitting a bibliographic review for its review and possible publication in the BCH, the authors should suggest at least two reviewers with experience in the subject, including their email addresses. In addition, authors can include names of reviewers who for various reasons should not receive the manuscript.

3. Notes:

Notes can correspond to detailed observations of ecology, natural history, distribution, or other topics, where an experimental design was not necessarily implemented or methods don’t have to be detailed, but where there is a minimal bibliographic review on the subject.

These must contain Title (and title in English), Affiliation, Abstract (and abstract in English), Keywords (maximum five) and a continuous and simple text (without separating in introduction, materials and methods, discussion and conclusion). These works must contain References.​

There is a limit of 5000 words, but it is always necessary to be as concise as possible to convey the information. There is also a limit of 5 figures and/or tables, as long as all of these are necessary for the manuscript. Additional text, tables and figures may be included as supplementary material.

When submitting a note for its review and possible publication in the BCH, the authors should suggest at least one reviewer with experience in the subject, including their email addresses. In addition, authors can include names of reviewers who for various reasons should not receive the manuscript.

4. Naturalist Notes:

They can refer to any novel observation of behavior, feeding, reproduction, malformations, or other aspect of natural history. They must be documented with at least one photograph. Distributional extensions are not accepted as naturalistic notes. They must contain a title, authors and an email for correspondence. The main text is not subdivided into sections and does not require the use of references, although the inclusion of a maximum of four references is allowed. If the work requires more references, then it should be written as a Note. We recommend this section only for authors who have no experience writing scientific articles.

There is a limit of 2000 words, but it is always necessary to be as concise as possible to convey the information. There is also a limit of 2 figures, as long as all of these are necessary for the manuscript.

5. Miscellaneous Notes:

This section provides a more informal and colloquial platform to publish various types of work, such as essays, opinions, notes on artists, history of Chilean and South American herpetology, events and news. The style is free, the use of references is optional, and the figures do not have to be referenced, even though it is in the style of each author. These works do not go through peer review; therefore, they are not scientific in nature.

​There is a limit of 8000 words, but it is always necessary to be as concise as possible to convey the information. There is also a limit of 7 figures, if all of these are necessary for the manuscript.

6. Herpetological Photographs:

Photographs of Chilean reptiles and amphibians will be published in this section. They must be sent in high resolution and jpg format, indicating the email, date, locality, author and scientific name of the species. Photographs of animals being handled will not be accepted.

On publication of distribution extensions or taxonomic proposals:

In the event that an article or note corresponds to a distributional extension, the voucher number and the herpetological collection in which the specimens were deposited must be indicated. In the case of distributional extensions, it is understood that it is not always possible or responsible to collect specimens, and in no way should this be done without government authorization. Publications of new photographic records are accepted using good photos and where diagnostic characters are provided that allow assigning individuals to a species with certainty. If the record is in doubt, the manuscript may be rejected.

The photographs can be deposited in collections such as the National Museum of Natural History of Chile, sending the files together with information on the species, sex, author of the photograph, date and location of the photograph to Jhoann Canto, Head of the Zoology Area (email: Jhoann.Canto@mnhn.gob.cl), who will give you a catalog number of your photograph to include in the manuscript.

Taxonomic changes such as new species or synonyms are accepted, but these require including review of specimens deposited in public access collections, and the review process will be especially strict to ensure that sufficient evidence is presented to support the hypothesis presented.

Reception of manuscripts:

Manuscripts can be submitted at any time. All manuscripts must be sent as a WORD file in Times New Roman font, size 12, containing page number and number of lines, to the email of one of the members of the editorial team or to BCH. The manuscript publication process in BCH is completely free.

Peer review:

All scientific work must pass the quality control provided by peer review. Scientific articles are reviewed by at least two external reviewers, notes by at least one external reviewer plus the editor in charge, and naturalist notes by the editor in charge. Miscellaneous notes are not scientific in nature and are therefore not subject to peer review. Manuscripts submitted to the Bulletin will be assigned to one of the two editor-in-chief who oversees the process, and an associate editor specializing in the work area to handle the peer review process. The review rounds are Double-blind: Neither party (authors and reviewers) knows the identity of the other.

Bulletin's style (applies to all sections):

The official language of the Bulletin is Spanish, but we also accept papers in English. Latin terms or expressions (in vivo, e.g., i.e., sensu, etc...) must be written in italics.

Although this is the official bulletin of Chilean herpetology, we also accept papers from other countries, particularly from South America.

Whenever a species is mentioned in the title, the scientific name must be indicated, followed by the authorship and the taxonomic classification (usually order and family) as indicated in the following example:

Telmatobufo bullocki Schmidt 1952 (Anura, Calyptocephalellidae)

In addition, the species reference must be included the first time it is mentioned in the text. We remind you that the authorship of a species only carries parentheses when the genus of the species has changed since its original description.

Only the metric system is accepted in the BCH. Here are examples of how to abbreviate the units: millimeters = mm; meters = m; grams = g; kilograms = kg; hours = h; degrees Celsius = ° C. For the use of coordinates, the preferred system is decimal degrees (eg -33.72, -70.47), but coordinates in degrees, minutes and seconds are also accepted.

When the manuscript has only one author, the affiliation and email must be indicated followed by the name of the author. When there are two or more authors, numerical superscripts must be used to assign the different addresses to the authors, and an asterisk to assign the correspondence email. For instance:

Javiera Cisternas1*, Claudio Correa1,2, Luis López3, Yaline Riveros3 y Catalina Silva4

1 Organización de Desarrollo Aumen o el eco de los montes, Coyhaique, Chile.

2 Departamento de Zoología, Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Oceanográficas, Universidad de Concepción, Concepción, Chile.

3 Darwin Producciones, Villa O ́Higgins, Chile.

4 Escuela Pioneros del Sur, Villa O ́Higgins, Chile.

*Correspondencia a: javiera.cisternas.tirapegui@gmail.com

References format:

References in the text must be cited as: Núñez (1992) or (Labra et al. 1995, Müller and Hellmich 1932, Núñez 1992). Species authorship for species that remain in the same genus in which they were described as: Callopistes maculatus Gravenhorst 1838. Authorship that has undergone genus change since description as: Liolaemus audituvelatus (Núñez and Yáñez 1983).

References at the end will use the following format:

Para articles:

MELLA-ÁVILA J, J MELLA-ROMERO, F REYES-CORTÉS & C MUÑOZ-VILLOUTA (2018) Validación de la presencia de Liolaemus kingii (Bell, 1843) (Iguania: Liolaemidae) en Chile. Boletín del Museo Nacional de Historia Natural, Chile 67(2): 137-144.

GREENE HW & FM JAKSIC (1992) The feeding behavior and natural history of two Chilean snakes, Philodryas chamissonis and Tachymenis chilensis (Colubridae). Revista Chilena de Historia Natural 65: 485-493.

DONOSO-BARROS R (1954) Contribuciones al estudio de la pigmentación en los vertebrados. Mecanismos pigmentarios en los reptiles. Zooiatría 4(13): 3-5.

For books:

DONOSO-BARROS R (1966) Reptiles de Chile. Ediciones Universidad de Chile, Santiago. Cxliv + 458.

For book chapters:

DÍAZ-PAEZ H, H NÚÑEZ & JC ORTIZ (2008) Estado de conservación de anfibios y reptiles. pp 233-267. En VIDAL M & A LABRA (Eds) Herpetología de Chile. Science Verlag. Santiago, Chile. 593 pp.

Figures and Tables:

Figures should be sent in JPEG format and must be cited in the text in order (e.g. Fig. 1, Figs. 1 and 2). If a figure is subdivided into several images, these must have an identifier in capital letters in the upper left corner: A, B, etc. The images of specimens contained in the figures must include the credits to the authors in the legend.

Tables must be included in the WORD file and cited in the text in order (e.g. Table 1, Tables 1 and 2). The legends of Tables and Figures must go at the end of the file, if they contain references they must follow the format required for the entire BCH. If manuscripts are written in Spanish, the figure and table legends must also include an English translation.

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Toponymies

The altitude should be indicated as: 2,300 m. Toponymies must be indicated in lowercase letters (eg: río Teno, cerro San Ramón), unless they are part of a conservation area (eg: Río Clarillo National Reserve). Administrative divisions (Region, Province, Commune) and protection areas (National Park, National Reserve, Natural Monument) must be capitalized.

Supplementary material

Supplementary material such as tables and extensive data and audiovisual material (videos, sound records) can be added to the articles and notes, included as a section “Supplementary Material” before the references. These will be available on the Bulletin website.