Happy Lunar New Year! For more than a billion people worldwide, today is a day of gifts, dancing, celebration and – of course – plenty of delicious food.
Coinciding with the first new moon of the lunar calendar, the 29th of January marks the beginning of a vibrant 15-day festival, which includes 7 days of holiday in China.
As 2025 is the Year of the Snake, we have gathered some of favourite studies celebrating the the scaly world of serpents to celebrate the occasion!
The tug-of-war coral snakes
A different kind of food fight.
A study published in Herpetozoa includes incredible footage of two red-tailed coral snakes (Micrurus mipartitus) engaging in a tug-of-war over a caecilian, a legless amphibian.
Check out the video below.
The event marked the first documented wild case of kleptoparasitism, or food theft, within the family Elapidae.
Read the full study here: https://doi.org/10.3897/herpetozoa.37.e112716
The Slytherin snake
10 points to Slytherin!
When naming a newly discovered green pit viper species from the Himalayas, researchers sought inspiration from the Harry Potter franchise.
Fittingly, they settled on Trimeresurus salazar, a reference to Salazar Slytherin who founded the serpent-crested Hogwarts house bearing his name.
The discovery was published in the open-access journal Zoosystematics and Evolution.
Read it here: https://doi.org/10.3897/zse.96.48431
The snake in a ski mask
Slithering around in style.
Rhynchocalamus hejazicus is a recently discovered and secretive snake species from the Hejaz region of Saudi Arabia.
Upon the species’ discovery, researchers dubbed the stylish serpent “the missing piece of the puzzle” as it fills a large distribution gap for its genus.
Published in Zoosystematics and Evolution, the research also includes a completely black variation of of the species known as a ‘melanistic morphotype.’
Read the full study here: https://doi.org/10.3897/zse.100.123441
The eyelash viper
Separating snake species.
An expedition into the jungles and cloud forests of Colombia and Ecuador revealed five dazzling new species of eyelash vipers, previously misidentified as one species.
Published in Evolutionary Systematics, the study received global attention from publications such as National Geographic thanks to the taxonomic importance and visual appeal of the research.
Check out the research paper here: https://doi.org/10.3897/evolsyst.8.114527
The shovel snake
Who ever said snakes can’t be cute?
Two species of African shovel-snout snakes, Prosymna confusa and Prosymna lisima, were published as new species in ZooKeys back in 2022.
Endemic to Angola, the snakes have unique beak-like snouts that allow them to dig into sandy soils. They also have backward pointed lancet-shaped teeth that they use for cutting open lizard eggs.
As they spend the majority of their time underground, these species were not the easiest to study, but they are certainly a treat for the eyes when they surface their wedge-shaped heads!
Read more here: https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.1121.85693
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The Pensoft journal collection contains innumerable snake studies, so we could go on forever sharing our favourites. Instead, we will wish you a happy and prosperous 2025 filled with plenty of safe snake encounters.
Happy Lunar New Year!
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