Researchers in Brazil’s Amazonas state are testing easy-to-use scanners that can help them identify animal species they come across in the wild, Mongabay contributor Miguel Monteiro reported in June. The scanners use a technology called near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS), which currently has many applications, from measuring food quality to monitoring blood oxygen levels in the medical field. The idea is simple: A portable NIRS scanning device emits near-infrared light onto an animal’s body surface. Some of the light is absorbed while some gets reflected. The device measures the reflected light, producing a “spectral signature,” unique to each species, like a fingerprint. To get to the final step of identifying species using the scanner, researchers first need to build a robust reference database linking each species in its environment to its spectral signature. Kelly Torralvo, a senior researcher in the Terrestrial Vertebrates Ecology Research Group at the Mamirauá Institute, is working to build such a database for reptiles and amphibians of the Mamirauá Sustainable Development Reserve in Brazil’s Amazonas state. Every night, Torralvo sets out with her flashlight, searching for herpetofauna among branches and leaves. Whatever she finds, she brings back to her field base’s laboratory within the reserve. There, Torralvo uses a device to scan each animal and detect its “spectral signature” using NIR technology. Torralvo co-authored a study in 2023 in which the researchers showed that NIRS technology could identify five out of the eight amphibian species they tested, with an 80% reliability, using only one spectral reading per individual.…This article was originally published on Mongabay