MAY 28,
2019
by PeerJ
An
international team of scientists identified the snake and its range, which
includes Turkey, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia, Iraq, Iran, and Russia including
a small region extending into the corner of Europe. Based on the genetic and
morphological data, the researchers were able to say that the Blotched Rat
Snake (Elaphe sauromates) is actually comprised of two different species and
includes a cryptic species that has been named after the old kingdom of Urartu.
The
kingdom, forgotten for over a thousand years, flourished between the 9th and
6th centuries BCE in the region of today's Armenian Highlands, centered around
Lake Van in Turkey, where this new snake species occurs. The name was
chosen out of respect for the original scientific name of the Blotched Rat
Snake proposed by the famous Prussian natural historian of the 19th century,
Peter Simon Pallas.
The
name Elaphe sauromates refers to Sarmatians, a confederation of
nomadic peoples who inhabited vast areas of the recent range of the Blotched
Rat Snake between the 5th century BCE and 4th century CE. According to Daniel
Jablonski and David Jandzik, lead scientists of the project from the Comenius
University in Bratislava, Slovakia, these snakes are very rarely observed in
the field and are mostly distributed in geopolitically complicated regions. As
a result, the material for their study was collected for over 17 years and
required a broad international collaboration.
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