![]() ![]() “But when everyone’s working on these smaller projects, it facilitates big, macro-evolutionary studies about the evolution of life.” “When you see these species descriptions come out, they seem like a very small piece of the puzzle,” said lead author Aryeh Miller, a research fellow at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History and a graduate student at Washington University in St Louis. This monumental effort depends on local fieldwork and collaborations across organizations. The work supports the broader mission of the Global Genome Biodiversity Network: to sequence the DNA of as many species as possible within the next few years. ![]() The international team of researchers surveyed karst forests in the summer of 2019 to learn more about northern Vietnam’s species diversity. The researchers named the new species Achalinus zugorum in honor of the Smithsonian’s retired curator of reptiles and amphibians, George Zug, and his wife, Patricia Zug.ĭense jungle covers the limestone karsts of northern Vietnam, creating a habitat for thousands of unique species. Because of this, they look and behave unlike many other snakes and could help scientists piece together new information about snake evolution. The species is part of a rare genus of burrowing snakes that branched from the evolutionary tree earlier than most other groups. In a paper published today in the journal Copeia, researchers from the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History and the Institute for Ecology and Biological Resources at the Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology described a new species of snake that they discovered in the Ha Giang province. Many of the species are endemic to the area, meaning they only exist there. In a region of the world already rich with life, these karsts and the lush green forests that cover them create habitats that support extreme biodiversity. Looming limestone mountains called karst formations rise abruptly from rivers, bays and valleys in northern Vietnam. (American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists) Increased sampling in east Africa resulted in the recovery of a new species of skaapsteker from Tanzania.Scientists discovered a new species of odd-scaled burrowing snakes in northern Vietnam. The samples used in the study were sourced from all over Africa, with groups such as the Okavango Wilderness Project (National Geographic) being essential to the acquisition of several samples that were difficult to obtain. ![]() Their research focused on the evolutionary history of the group and used both genetics and head structure to delve into the relationships among the species. More recently, a group of herpetologists, led by PhD candidate Chad Keates, conducted one of the most thorough genetic studies of the genus to date. Past studies focused on these snakes and their relatives, relied on only one representative from each species of Psammophylax. The spotted skaapsteker, Psammophylax rhombeatus, is the most southerly distributed species of the genus, and is one of the most commonly encountered snakes in the Eastern Cape, and more specifically, East London. They are so named for the erroneous belief that they commonly bite and kill sheep. Psammophylax is the genus (similar to your surname) name of widespread African snakes commonly referred to as skaapstekers or “sheep‐stabbers”. A research team from Rhodes University and the Port Elizabeth Museum has discovered a new species and genus of snake, and have named them in honour of two reptile scientists (herpetologists) from the Eastern Cape. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |