A snake the color of smoldering coals, with round eyes, crawls among the bushes in the foothill forests of Panama.
“These new snake species are just the tip of the iceberg.in terms of discovering new species in this region,” says lead author Alejandro Arteaga. “But if illegal mining continues at the same pace, it may not be possible to make any discoveries in the future.”
S.irmelindicaprioae takes its name from actor and conservationist Leonardo DiCaprio, who asked that the red-eyed snake be named after his mother, Irmelin Indenbirken. DiCaprio's eponymous snake is about 38 cm long and spends evenings on palm branches about 3 m above the ground, hunting for snails and slugs. The snake does not defend itself with bites, but with a protective ring around its head and the emission of an unpleasant odor.
The remaining four newly discovered species are describedin a study published Jan. 25 in the journal ZooKeys. These are the snail-eating snake (Sibon canopy), the Marley snail-eating snake (Sibon marleyae), the Vieira snail-eating snake (Sibon vieirai), and the Welborn snail-eating snake (Dipsas welborni).
To identify the new species, Arteaga and hiscolleagues constructed an evolutionary tree of the Dipsadinae—a large and diverse subfamily of tree, land, and aquatic snakes native to the Americas—after analyzing 343 snake DNA sequences. Scientists have determined that five species are sufficiently different from their closest relatives in both appearance and genetics to qualify as new species. DiCaprio's snake, for example, is not immediately different from Siphonops annulatus, Dipsadine's cousin. But in addition to the genetic differences, the two species have distinct back and head coloration, as well as other clear signs that they are not quite the same.
Unfortunately, most of these new species,snail feeders face serious problems; the authors believe DiCaprio's snake already meets the International Union for Conservation of Nature's criteria for "endangered" as gold and copper mining devastates the rainforests that the snakes call home. All five species of snakes are arboreal, meaning they cannot survive in deforested areas, and they all rely on a constant diet of slugs and snails, which are declining due to pollution of streams and rivers, according to scientists. mining.
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