Pensoft blog - Part 101

The lizard of consistency: New iguana species which sticks to its colors found in Chile

During a field trip at 3000 metres above sea level, a group of scientists, led by Jaime Troncoso-Palacios, Universidad de Chile, discovered a new endemic iguana species, in the mountains of central Chile, scientists. Noticeably different in size and scalation, compared to the rest of the local lizards, what initially grabbed the biologists’ attention was its colouration. Not only was it unlike the already described ones, but also appeared surprisingly consistent within the collected individuals, even regardless of their sex. Eventually, it was this peculiar uniformity that determined the lizard’s name L. uniformis. The study is published in the open-access journal ZooKeys.

The researchers found the lizards quite abundant in the area, which facilitated their observations and estimations. Apart from a thorough description of the new iguana along with its comparisons to its related species, the present paper also provides an in-depth discussion about the placement of the new taxon, which had been confused with other species in the past.

While most of the other lizards from the area and its surroundings often vary greatly in colouration and pattern between populations and sexes, such thing is not present in the new species. Both males and females from the observed collection have their bodies’ upper side in brown, varying from dark on the head, through coppery on the back and light brown on the tail. The down side of the body is mainly yellowish, while the belly – whitish. The only variables the scientists have noticed in their specimens are slight differences in the shade with two females demonstrating unusual olive hues on their snouts. These differences in morphology were also strongly supported by the molecular phylogeny through the analysis of mitochondrial DNA, which was performed by Dr. Alvaro A. Elorza, from Universidad Andres Bello.

Accustomed to life in highland rocky habitats with scarce greenery, these lizards spend their active hours, estimated to take place between 09:00 h and 18:00 h hidden under stones. However, they might not be too hard to find due to their size of about 8.5 cm for the males and their abundance in the studied area. The females are more slender and measure 7 cm in length on average.

Having caught one of their specimens while holding a yellow flower in its mouth, the scientists conducted further examination of the stomach contents of the studied individuals and concluded that the species is omnivorous, feeding mainly on plants as well as insects and roundworms.

In conclusion, the researchers showed that there is still a huge gap in the knowledge of the close relatives of the newly described species and their “challenging taxonomy”.

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Original source:

Troncoso-Palacios J, Elorza AA, Puas GI, Alfaro-Pardo E (2016) A new species of Liolaemusrelated to L. nigroviridis from the Andean highlands of Central Chile (Iguania, Liolaemidae).ZooKeys 555: 91-114. doi: 10.3897/zookeys.555.6011

The tip of an iceberg: Four new fungus gnat species from the Scandinavian north

One may think that the extreme north of Europe is low in insect life, except for the notorious blood-sucking flies. However, while it is a generally accepted truth that both plant and animal species’ count is higher the closer one gets to the Equator, some insects display anomalous diversity gradient. Such is the case for European fungus gnats, for example, a highly diverse group of true flies. No less than about 1000 species are known to occur in the Scandinavian Peninsula, representing about 83% of the continent’s total. Furthermore, undescribed fly species are continuously being discovered from North Europe.

In a recent paper published in Biodiversity Data Journal, four new species are described. These species have been collected from mires and old-growth forests of Finnish Lapland between 2012 and 2014. One of the species has a wider range, known from Sweden, Norway and Canada.

‘I must admit that it was a pleasure to give names to these species’ says Dr. Jukka Salmela, conservation biologist at Parks & Wildlife Finland (Metsahallitus). ‘These four species are really interesting, because they are rather distant to other known members of the genus Boletina. I am also confident that these species are very rare and may be dependent on old-growth forests or small water bodies such as springs and wetlands.’

The names of the new species all reflect northern nature in one way or another. Boletina valteri is named after Professor Valter Keltikangas, a forest researcher who made very demanding and physically tough field excursions to Finnish Lapland in the 1920’s and the ’30’s.

Boletina kullervoi derives from Kalevala, a Finnish national epic. It tells the story of an orphan, called Kullervo, who eventually kills his foster father and commits suicide. The violent story of Kullervo has also inspired composer Jean Sibelius for his first symphony, “Kullervo”.

Boletina hyperborea is self-explanatory, meaning far north. The species occurs in Yukon and in northern Scandinavia. Similarly, Boletina nuortti is named after the River Nuortti. In north Sami language nuorti means east. The gorgeous and wild River Nuortti flows from Finland to Russia.

No less than 100 Fennoscandian (Scandinavian) fungus gnat species await their formal description. ‘The boreal and Arctic nature still holds many secrets. Entomologists with simple gear such as sweep nets, Malaise traps and microscopes can still make notable discoveries even in rather well-studied regions such as Finland and Sweden. Samples collected from northern mires and boreal forests are never boring if one studies neglected groups such as small flies,’ says Jukka Salmela. “These four newly described taxa just represent a small fraction of the numerous undescribed northern fly species, so they are like a tip of an iceberg.”

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Original source:

Salmela J, Suuronen A, Kaunisto K (2016) New and poorly known Holarctic species of Boletina Staeger, 1840 (Diptera, Mycetophilidae). Biodiversity Data Journal 4: e7218. doi:10.3897/BDJ.4.e7218

1,541 snout moth species and counting in the United States and Canada

The present snout moth list contains a ten-percent increase in the number of species since 1983. For the last thirty-three years snout moth specialists in the United States and Canada have been describing species new to science and recording species new to these two countries. Scientists have also published studies resulting in major changes to the classification above the species level, for example by studying snout moth “ears” (tympanal organs) and utilizing genes to study their relationships.

This check list was compiled over a three-year period by Dr. Brian Scholtens and Dr. M. Alma Solis. Brian Scholtens is a professor at the College of Charleston, South Carolina, and M. Alma Solis is a research entomologist at the Agriculture Research Service’s Systematic Entomology Laboratory, and curator of the U.S. National Pyraloidea Collection located at the Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of Natural History, Washington, D.C. Their results have been published in the open-access journal ZooKeys.

“A check list is one of the most important pieces of research, with many applications,” says Dr. Solis. “Knowing the fauna of a geographic area makes it possible to track species and, in this case, potential invasive species. The caterpillars of snout moths are economically important worldwide as pests of planted crops for food or biofuel, of forest trees, and of stored products such as wheat and nuts.”

“Many species, for example, the stored product pests, occur worldwide, but others, such as pest species of grasses including corn, can be restricted or only exist in certain geographic areas,” the scientist further explains. “It is important to be able to recognize as soon as possible that a particular species is not native to the United States or Canada.”

Scientists use Latin scientific names as “unique tags” to communicate about the morphological or molecular identity and habits of a species. One of the functions of taxonomists is to determine if a species is new or if it has already been described. Historically, confusion is created when the same species is described more than once (called a synonym) in other parts of the world.

A regional check list such as this one and a worldwide check list can work together to reinforce precision in the definition and communication about species, especially decreasing confusion about synonyms. Most worldwide check lists exist as online databases that can be updated. Dr. Solis said that they had cited new discoveries relevant to the North American snout moth fauna found in GLOBIZ, or the Global Information System on Pyraloidea, an electronic list of over 15,500 snout moth species names for which she is a collaborator.

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Original source:

Scholtens, B. & M. A. Solis. 2015. Annotated check list of the Pyraloidea (Lepidoptera) of America North of Mexico. Zookeys.535:1-1136. doi: 10.3897/zookeys.535.6086.

Serendipitous orchid: An unexpected species discovered in Mexican deciduous forests

A new elegant orchid species that grows on rocks in deciduous forests of the Pacific slope of Oaxaca state, Mexico, has finally put an end to a long standing dispute among taxonomists. ‘Sheltered’ under the name of a close relative, the plant has been proved by a research team, led by Dr. Leopardi-Verde, to be different enough for a species of its own. Its distinct features, including shape, size and colors, are discussed and published in the open-access journal PhytoKeys.

When scientists Drs. Carlos L. Leopardi-Verde, Universidad de Colima and Centro de Investigacion Cientifica de Yucatan, German Carnevali and Gustavo A. Romero-Gonzalez, both affiliated with Centro de Investigacion Cientifica de Yucatan and Harvard University Herbaria, stumbled across a beautiful orchid in bloom, they found themselves so surprised by its unique colors and forms that later on they chose the specific epithet inopinatus, meaning “unexpected”.

One of the most distinctive characters of the new plant is the yellow labellum patterned with crimson to reddish brown lines. Typically for its species complex, this orchid’s leaves are wide and leatherlike and the flowers are relatively large, showy, and leathery to fleshy-leathery petals and sepals. The color of the flowers varies from bronze-green with dark purple lines near the base to pale pink and creamy white splashed with reddish-brown spots and lines towards the top.

The plant is between 30 and 42 cm tall, while together with its flowers it reaches between 80 and 90 cm. Each branch of the inflorescence bears from 3 to 8 flowers, which bloom between March and July. Having been recorded only from a few sites on the Pacific slope of Oaxaca state, Mexico, the species appears to be rare.

The authors explain the similarities between the new species and its close relatives. They also discuss the long-held confusion about its taxonomic placement. As a result of the study, a hypothesis about hybridization that has played a role in the evolution and origin of the novelty has been refuted.

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Original source:

Leopardi-Verde CL, Carnevali G, Romero-Gonzalez GA (2016) Encyclia inopinata (Orchidaceae, Laeliinae) a new species from Mexico. PhytoKeys 58: 87-95. doi: 10.3897/phytokeys.58.6479

From Sherborn to ZooBank: Moving to the interconnected digital nomenclature of the future

From the outside, it can seem that taxonomy has a commitment issue with scientific names. They shift for reasons that seem obscure and unnecessarily wonkish to people who simply want to use names to refer to a consistent, knowable taxon such as species, genus or family. However, the relationship between nomenclature and taxonomy, as two quite separate but mutually dependent systems, is a sophisticated way of balancing what we know and what is open to further interpretation.

Nomenclature is a bureaucracy that follows rules and is tied to published records and type specimens. It provides a rigid framework or skeleton for knowledge. Taxonomy, on the other hand, is a data-driven science, influenced by interpretation and resulting in concepts that are open to further test and change. To actually get the answers right, taxonomy needs to be responsive and fluid as a system of knowledge. The link between nomenclature and the published record is also the junction with the data that fuels taxonomic interpretation.

Biodiversity informatics aims to solve this issue, and its founding father is Charles Davies Sherborn. His magnum opus, Index Animalium, provided the bibliographic foundation for current zoological nomenclature. In the 43 years he spent working on this extraordinary resource, he anchored our understanding of animal diversity through the published scientific record. No work has equaled it, and it is still in current and critical use.

This special volume of the open-access journal ZooKeys celebrates Sherborn, his contributions, context and the future for the discipline of biodiversity informatics. The papers in this volume fall into three general areas of history, current practice and frontiers.

The first section presents facets of Sherborn as a man, scientist and bibliographer, and describes the historical context for taxonomic indexing from the 19th century to today. The second section discusses existing tools and innovations for bringing legacy biodiversity information into the modern age. The final section tackles the future of biological nomenclature, including digital access, innovative publishing models and the changing tools and sociology needed for communicating taxonomy.

In the late 1880s Charles Davies Sherborn recognised the need for a full index of names to the original sources that gave them legitimacy, their first publications. He set about making a complete index for names of animals, which are the largest group of described organisms (1.4 million of the current 1.8 million described species are animals). Because this work began while the very basics of nomenclatural rules were being thrashed out, the work itself affected how those rules were codified.

Sherborn’s monumental work, Index Animalium, comprises more than 9,000 pages in 11 volumes and about 440,000 names. This was on the scale of other hugely ambitious tasks at the time that changed the course of communication such as the Oxford English Dictionary. The error rates are astonishingly low, and it became, and it remains to date the most complete reference source for animal nomenclature. Taxonomic studies rely on Sherborn’s work today. While the future for information access is one of the most exciting frontiers for our increasingly interconnected, accelerated society, biodiversity information will continue to be grounded in this seminal work. The future for biodiversity informatics is built on Sherborn’s work, and is expanding to be digital, diversified and accessible.

The publisher of this volume, the journal ZooKeys, is itself a pioneer in developing a more stable and accessible scientific nomenclature. Together with PhytoKeys, ZooKeys is piloting an innovative workflow with a pre-publication automated pipeline for registration of nomenclatural acts. This initiative comes from the EU FP7 project pro-iBiosphere, and in close collaboration with ZooBank (the official online registry for scientific names of animals), Zoological Record, IPNI, MycoBank and Index Fungorum, and the Global Names project. The volume was inspired by a symposium held in Sherborn’s honour at the Natural History Museum (NHM), London, on the 150th year of his birth in 2011, organised by the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN), in collaboration with the Society for the History of Natural History (SHNH).

Sherborn was a man with a vision for the future and respect for the accomplishments of the past. He would have celebrated the new tools for the ambitious goal of linking all biological information through names that are readable for both machines and humans. He would have understood the tremendous power of interconnected names for biodiversity science overall. And he would have knuckled down and got to work to make it happen.

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Original source:

Michel E (2016) Anchoring Biodiversity Information: From Sherborn to the 21st century and beyond. In: Michel E (Ed.) Anchoring Biodiversity Information: From Sherborn to the 21st century and beyond. ZooKeys 550: 1-11. doi: 10.3897/zookeys.550.7460

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Anchoring Biodiversity Information – Sherborn Special Issue is available to read and order from here.

A botanical survey to help understand change in our wild flora

Volunteers in the north-east of England have created a benchmark survey of common plants with which to identify change in the countryside, its result and causes. This survey will be used in future to monitor the effects of climate change on plants; assess the success of conservation measures and predict future change. Its findings are published in the open-access journal Biodiversity Data Journal, contributing an additional 35,000 observations to the 200,000 observations collected by local recorders since the turn of the millennium .

Many people remark on the changes that are occurring in the countryside, the disappearance of some species and the spread of others. Yet, these anecdotes cannot substitute for hard facts. There are also many suggested causes for all these changes such as warmer climate, different agricultural practices, eutrophication, or alien species. Botanical observations tend to be biased. For example, common species are often ignored in the interest of exceptional ones. Therefore, what was needed was a dedicated survey with a clear and repeatable methodology.

Common plant species are the mainstay of habitats, they create our woodlands, hedgerows and meadows. They also provide the food for herbivores and pollinators and create homes for birds and mammals. Changes in the abundance of rare species have little impact on other species, but change in the abundance of common species can have cascading effects on whole ecosystems of which we are a part.

For these reasons volunteer botanists in the north-east of England conducted a four-year survey to benchmark the abundance of common plants. Led by the Botanical Societies vice county recorders, John Durkin Ecology, Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland, and Botanic Garden Meise, the volunteers surveyed the plants in a randomly selected sample of 1km2 grid squares in the vice counties of Durham and South Northumberland.

They created a solid foundation that can be used to qualify the abundance of common species and compare against previous and future studies. The project was conducted over four years and required volunteers to go to various places. Some surveyed post-industrial brown-field sites, while others walked for miles across bleak moorland to reach sites high in the hills. Although these moors are arguably wilder and natural, the industrial wastelands turn out to be far more biodiverse.

Botanical surveying continues in the region despite the end of the project. Volunteers continue to monitor rare plants in the region and are currently working towards the next atlas of Britain and Ireland, coordinated by the Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland.

“Good biological conservation in the 21st century will have as much to do with sensitive adaption to change as it is about preserving what we have,” point out the authors. “Human memory is short and fickle and it is only with benchmark surveys, such as this that we can hope to understand and manage that change.”

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Original source:

Groom Q, Durkin J, O’Reilly J, Mclay A, Richards A, Angel J, Horsley A, Rogers M, Young G (2015) A benchmark survey of the common plants of South Northumberland and Durham, United Kingdom. Biodiversity Data Journal 3: e7318. doi: 10.3897/BDJ.3.e7318

Seventy-four cuckoos in the nest: A new key to all North European cuckoo wasp species

Captivating with their bright, vivid and brilliantly metallic bodies, the cuckoo wasps are also fascinating with their curious lifestyle, which has given them this common name. However, in terms of their taxonomic grouping, they have been quite problematic due to similarities between species and a wide range of variations within them.

To shed light on the issue, an international research team, led by MSc Juho Paukkunen, Finnish Museum of Natural History, Helsinki, provides descriptions and illustrations of all 74 species found in the Nordic and Baltic countries, including one new, in their recent publication in the open-access journal ZooKeys.

Beautiful in appearance, the cuckoo wasps penetrate the nests of unrelated solitary wasps and solitary bees to lay their eggs, similar to how a cuckoo bird does in songbird nests. With their armoured bodies and the ability to curl up into a tight ball the cuckoo wasps are well-defended against the owners of the nests and their stings and jaws. At the larval stage, they take advantage of their hosts by either parasitising them or stealing their food, eventually killing the host’s offspring.

Within the Nordic representatives of the family there are an exceptionally large number of red-listed and endangered species. This is one of the reasons why the authors intend to trigger more interest among their fellow entomologists about these curious wasps. They have compiled all relevant information concerning their distribution, abundance, habitats, flight season and host species. The authors have tried to keep their identification key as comprehensive and concise as possible, by singling out the essential information on diagnostic characters.

In the present study, the researchers describe a new species, called Chrysis borealis, which can be translated as ‘Northern’ cuckoo wasp. Although the male and female individuals are very similar, there is a significant variation in the colouration within the species. It is especially noticeable between the specimens collected from the northern localities and those from the southern ones. For instance, while the middle section of the body in southern specimens is either bright blue or violet with a greenish shimmer, in northern individuals it is nearly black, turning to greenish or golden green at the periphery.

The varying shades within a certain species are quite common among the cuckoo wasps. While it is often that distinctive colouration among other wasps and insects indicates their separate origin and therefore, taxonomic placement, within the emerald family it can be a mere case of habitat location with the northern populations typically darker.

Such tendencies often lead to doubts such as the one the authors have faced regarding their new species. It has been suggested that the Northern cuckoo wasp is in fact yet another variation of the very similar C. impressa, which is generally slightly brighter in colour, but at the same time distributed in warmer localities. However, using DNA sequence information and morphometric analysis, the team shows that there are enough consistent differences to separate them as distinct species, although they are defined as evolutionarily young siblings.

With their research the authors intend to provide a basis for further and more detailed studies on the distribution, biology and morphology of the North European representatives of these intriguing wasps.

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Original source:

Paukkunen J, Berg A, Soon V, Odegaard F, Rosa P (2015) An illustrated key to the cuckoo wasps (Hymenoptera, Chrysididae) of the Nordic and Baltic countries, with description of a new species. ZooKeys 548: 1-116. doi: 10.3897/zookeys.548.6164

What will be your good cause this Christmas? Name a Tanzanian Tree, Save a Tropical Forest

Every new species is given a name, but usually this privilege remains with the scientists who discovered it. Now, Dr Andy Marshall*, Senior Lecturer in York’s Environment Department and Director of Conservation Science at Flamingo Land, gives up this right to his latest discovery in order to colleges and schools the opportunity to have a unique new Tanzanian tree species named after them, while raising funds to protect tropical forest biodiversity. Watch a video about the initiative.

Schools can take part in the competition until March 30th 2016, and what is a better time to start fundraising than Christmas!

Finding a new tree species is not an easy job, but to Dr Andy Marshall it came as a providence. In June 2011 while the scientist was surveying a remote forest in the Udzungwa Mountains of Tanzania, with the completely different aim of understanding the habitat needs of one of the world’s rarest primates – the kipunji monkey, his attention was drawn by a curious tree that he just could not identify.

This prompted the researcher to collect some material and soon afterwards, while idly rummaging through dried specimens at the National Museums of Kenya, it turned out that, to his surprise, this was an entirely new species from the genus Polyceratocarpus.

“The tree grows as large as an oak tree, so I was amazed to find that scientists had not named it before,” explains Dr. Marshall. “If there are still species as large as a tree that remain unnoticed, imagine the treasure trove of smaller ones that are still awaiting discovery!”

For Dr. Marshal, it is particularly important to conserve tropical forests like those in Tanzania that yielded his unlikely discovery. They provide many benefits both locally and globally, and hold many endemic species that cannot be found anywhere else in the world.

This is how the idea behind School 4 Forests came about. Supported by the CIRCLE (Collaboration for Integrated Research, Conservation and Learning), a partnership between the University of York and the UK’s most visited zoo, Flamingo Land, the initiative calls for school and colleges around the world to take part in a fundraising competition to help tropical forests, while at the same time offers them resources to teach students about their importance.

The initiative is a double win for biodiversity, safeguarding not only financial support for tropical forests, but also investing in a green next generation. And the first prize is sweet – the school which rises the most gets to choose a name for the new Tanzanian tree species, which will be later on formally described in the open access journal Phytokeys.

Apart from the top prize, School 4 Forests has a lot more to give to its helpers:

Monkey t-shirts for anyone raising over £50! (Yes! Individuals can take part too.)
Free educational school trips to Flamingo Land!
A chance to be twinned with a school or college in Tanzania!
Free entry to an awards ceremony and rainforest activity day at Flamingo Land!

The rules are simple. Every school and college around the world can join the fundraising competition Schools 4 Forests by simply holding a small fundraiser. After free registration on the the Just Giving site, all participating schools and colleges will be provided with a fundraising pack including simple ideas for raising money and a number of forest-related teaching resources.

More information on the competition rules and how to take part are available here.

*Dr. Marshall is happy to answer your questions about the initiative! Dr. Andy Marshall Mobile: +44 (0)7725 010100 Email: andy.marshall@york.ac.uk

30th anniversary of Symposia on Chysomelidae celebrated in a new leaf beetle-themed issue

For the last 30 years entomologists all over the world have been gathering together on a regular basis, led by their fascination with one of the three most captivating with their colours and numbers beetle families. The most cardinal of these gatherings is the Symposium on Leaf Beetles, nowadays organised every two years, which traditionally culminates into special issues to hold the quintessence from the findings, talks and debates and keep them safe for the future generations. For a fifth time in a row, the latest volume is published in the open-access journal ZooKeys.

The present volume, assembled with the works of a large multinational research team and put together by editors Drs. Michael Schmitt, Ernst-Moritz-Arndt-Universität, Jorge Santiago-Blay and long-year head of the community of leaf beetle researchers, Prof. Pierre Hippolyte Auguste Jolivet, continues the seemingly ever-going task assumed by the community to further build on the knowledge about the taxonomy, distribution, physiology and biology of the amazing creatures.

In light of the news of Prof. Pierre Jolivet’s resignation from his post as head and senior editor of Research on Chrysomelidae, his colleagues and friends from the chrysomelid community have dedicated the present volume to their “spiritus rector”. “We, editors, many authors, and publishers of Research on Chrysomelidae are grateful for Pierre’s permanent intellectual stimulation, his helpful input, and his friendship,” read the final words of the editorial.

Apart from the activities linked to Research on Chrysomelidae, Prof. Pierre Jolivet has been the inspiring leader of the community of leaf beetle researchers for more than half a century. Furthermore, the Normandy-born entomologist has also published works on ants, ant-plant interactions, parasites of insects and even broader topics, such as evolution.

However, with its 30-year legacy the collaborative global initiative does not seem anywhere close to its slowing down. While a sixth consecutive volume of RoC is currently in production with ZooKeys journal, more and more young chrysomelidologists join the community. Meanwhile, the Symposia themselves having been held every four years, now take place every twenty-four months.

“Eight symposia on Chrysomelidae have been held. Many new things have been found but some problems remain unsolved,” conclude the editors.

“It is certain that some areas need more investigation, as Madagascar for instance, and that there remain many biological problems to be solved or to be discovered,” they point their next steps. “Deforestation reduces the number of species and genera, and many will disappear before being described. Few will persist as fossils in the tropics. Millions of insects have existed in the past and will remain unknown forever.”

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Original source:

Jolivet P (2015) Together with 30 years of Symposia on Chrysomelidae! Memories and personal reflections on what we know more about leaf beetles. In: Jolivet P, Santiago-Blay J, Schmitt M (Eds) Research on Chrysomelidae 5. ZooKeys 547: 35-61. doi: 10.3897/zookeys.547.7181

Research on Chrysomelidae 5 Special Issue is available to read and order from here.

Three new fishing snake species fished out of the Andean slopes in South America

Commonly known as fishing snakes, the Synophis genus has been expanded with as many as three new species following a research in the Andean cloud forests of Amazonian Ecuador and Peru. Not only is the discovery remarkable due to the rarity of new snake species being discovered, but also because this is the first time this mysterious and already eight-member genus is recorded from Peru. The study is published in the open-access journal ZooKeys.

The three new species have been identified as a result of both field and laboratory work, undertaken by Dr. Omar Torres-Carvajal, Museo de Zoología QCAZ, Ecuador, in collaboration with herpetologists from Peru (CORBIDI) and the United States (Francis Marion University). The new species differ from their closest relatives in scale features, male sexual organs and DNA. The unusual discoveries took place in areas within the 1,542,644 km2 of the Tropical Andes hotspot, western South America.

Although they are commonly known as fishing snakes, these reptiles most likely do not eat fish. Their diet and behavior are poorly known. So far, it has only been reported that one species feeds on lizards.

The fishing snakes have long been known to live in cloud forests on both sides of the Andes of Colombia and Ecuador. Yet, it seems they have waited all along to make an appearance. The new species described herein, along with a recent description of one species from southwestern Ecuador also published in Zookeys, has duplicated the number of species of fishing snakes from four to eight over the span of several months.

During their recent expeditions to several localities along the Andes of Ecuador and Peru the authors collected several individuals of fishing snakes, which they suspected to be previously unknown. After comparing their specimens with those deposited in a number of natural history museums, the authors’ suspicions only became stronger.

Consequently, the scientists examined the male snakes’ sexual organs (hemipenes) and DNA evidence. The results left no doubts that the specimens belonged to three undescribed fishing snake species.

“We started working with fishing snakes a year ago as new specimens were collected in poorly explored areas of the Amazonian slopes of the Andes in Ecuador and Peru,” explains lead author Dr. Omar Torres-Carvajal. “At that time only four species of fishing snakes had been described, and they were recognized in the literature as one of the most rare and secretive groups of snakes in South America.”

“In less than a year, we and other herpetologists doubled the number of known species of fishing snakes, showing that their diversity had been greatly underestimated,” he points out.

“This story is similar to the story of the woodlizards (Enyalioides), a group of dragon-like lizards with more than half of its species discovered in recent years in the tropical Andes,” the scientist reminisces.

“This tells us that this hotspot is more diverse than we thought, so it is very important that basic biodiversity research is properly funded,” Dr. Torres-Carvajal concludes. “Otherwise, we might never know what other scaly creatures are crawling around us.”

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Original source:

Torres-Carvajal O, Echevarría LY, Venegas PJ, Chávez G, Camper JD (2015) Description and phylogeny of three new species of Synophis (Colubridae, Dipsadinae) from the tropical Andes in Ecuador and Peru. ZooKeys 546: 153-179. doi: 10.3897/zookeys.546.6533.