Date: March 11, 2019
Source: Pensoft Publishers
Following
a series of recent surveys in north-western Liberia and south-eastern Guinea,
an international team of researchers found three stiletto snakes which 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 from the Natural History
Museum, Berlin, provides further evidence for the status of the western part of
the Upper Guinea forest zone as a center of rich and endemic biodiversity.
Curiously,
stiletto snakes have unusual skulls and venom delivery system, allowing them to
attack and stab sideways with a fang sticking out of the corner of their
mouths. While most of these burrowing snakes are not venomous enough to kill a
human -- even though some are able to inflict serious tissue necrosis -- this
behaviour makes them impossible to handle using the standard approach of
holding them with fingers behind the head. In fact, they can even stab with
their mouths closed.
The new
species, called Atractaspis branchi or Branch's Stiletto Snake, was
named to honor to the recently deceased South African herpetologist Prof.
William Roy (Bill) Branch, a world leading expert on African reptiles.
The new
species lives in primary rainforest and rainforest edges in the western part of
the Upper Guinea forests. Branch's Stiletto Snake is most likely endemic to
this area, a threatened biogeographic region already known for its unique and
diverse fauna.
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