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Bahamas Chatter: New species of snake found on Conception Island
New species of snake found on Conception Island
Posted: 31 May 2016 10:47 AM PDT
(from an article in the National Geographic published May 26, 2016)
On an uninhabited island in the southern Bahamas, a scientist noticed a snake that shined like metal as it climbed a tree.
“We all came to take a look at it, and it was instantly clear that this was something different,” says biologist R. Graham Reynolds, part of the scientific team exploring the remote islands.
Expedition member Alberto Puente-Rolón, an expert on Caribbean boas, agreed that the animal appeared unlike any species of known boa.
So the team went searching for more boas, finding four more snakes before settling down to sleep on the beach at Conception Island. But it turns out the boas weren’t ready to call it a night. (See “Extremely Rare Fishing Snakes Discovered.”)
“Sometime around 3:30 in the morning, I woke up to something crawling across my face,” says Reynolds, now a biologist at the University of North Carolina, Asheville.
Another silver boa had come down from the forest and crawled right over him as he slept. They’d located their sixth specimen, and DNA analyses back at the lab confirmed the snake was a new species.
The scientists named the Conception Bank silver boa (Chilabothrus argentum), based on both its color and the fact it was first found on an aptly named silver palm tree. A study on the species appeared in the journal Breviora.