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After a series of recent surveys in northwestern Liberia and southeastern Guinea, an international team of researchers discovered three stiletto serpents that were later identified as a species previously unknown to science.
The discovery, published in the open access journal Zoosystematics and Evolution by the team of Dr. Mark-Oliver Roedel of the Berlin Natural History Museum, provides further evidence of the status of the western part of the Upper Guinea forest area as a rich and endemic biodiversity center .
Curiously, stiletto serpents have an unusual skull and venom delivery system, allowing them to attack and stab laterally with a fang protruding from the corner of the mouth. Although most of these burrowing snakes are not venomous enough to kill a human – even if some are capable of inflicting severe tissue necrosis – this behavior makes them unmanageable with the standard approach of hold your fingers behind your head. In fact, they can even stab their mouths shut.
The new species, called Atractaspis branchi or the Stiletto Serpent of Branch, was named in the honor of Prof. William Roy (Bill) Branch, recently deceased South African herpetologist, world-renowned expert on African reptiles.
The new species lives in the primary rainforests and edges of rainforest located in the western Upper Guinea forests. The Branch Stiletto Snake is most likely endemic to this region, a threatened biogeographic region already known for its unique and diverse wildlife.
The first specimen of the new species was collected at night on a steep bank of a small rocky stream in an evergreen lowland rainforest in Liberia. After raising it, the snake tried to hide his head under the body curls, bending it almost at right angles, so that his fangs were partially visible on the sides. Then he hits several times. He would also have traveled distances almost as long as his whole body. The other two specimens used for the description of the species were collected from banana, cassava and coffee plantations in south-eastern Guinea, separated by about 27 km.
"The discovery of a new species of fossilized snake probably endemic in the forests of western Upper Guinea is not so surprising," the researchers concluded. "However, further studies are needed to determine the range of the new species of snakes and collect more information about its ecological needs and biological properties."
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