Abstract
Dialoguing with ethnographic analyzes on human-animal relations, this text presents developments from a study that tracked works of description of biodiversity which are permeated by tensions related to life and death of research animals of the caatinga biome, through observing the routine of life science labs and interviewing biologists. It is argued that the game between life and death that marks the relationships that bind animals and their biologists produces scientific careers in researches that take as their object the contours of the biome caatinga as exclusively Brazilian, rich in biological diversity and threatened with extinction. As unfolding, the scientific disciplines ecology and zoology are positioned as caatinga knowledge that deal with environmental indicators that are necessary for the safety of non-humans in their habitats.
Keywords:
animality; biological sciences; humanization; laboratory