Tag: new species

DiCaprio and Sheth name new species of tree-dwelling snakes threatened by mining

Five new drop-dead-gorgeous tree-dwelling snake species were discovered in the jungles of Ecuador, Colombia, and Panama.

Five new drop-dead-gorgeous tree-dwelling snake species were discovered in the jungles of Ecuador, Colombia, and Panama. Conservationists Leonardo DiCaprio, Brian Sheth, Re:wild, and Nature and Culture International chose the names for three of them in honor of loved ones while raising awareness about the issue of rainforest destruction at the hands of open-pit mining operations. The research was conducted by Ecuadorian biologist Alejandro Arteaga, an Explorers Club Discovery Expedition Grantee, and Panamanian biologist Abel Batista.

The mountainous areas of the upper-Amazon rainforest and the Chocó-Darién jungles are world-renowned for the wealth of new species continually discovered in this region. However, it is becoming increasingly clear that they also house some of the largest gold and copper deposits in the world. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the proliferation of illegal open-pit gold and copper mining operations in the jungles of Ecuador, Colombia, and Panama reached a critical level and is decimating tree-dwelling snake populations.

Illegal mining activity in the upper Ecuadorian Amazon doubled between 2021 and 2022. Photo by Jorge Anhalzer

Neotropical snail-eating snakes (genera Sibon and Dipsas) have a unique lifestyle that makes them particularly prone to the effects of gold and copper mining. First, they are arboreal, so they cannot survive in areas devoid of vegetation, such as in open-pit mines. Second, they feed exclusively on slugs and snails, a soft-bodied type of prey that occurs mostly along streams and rivers and is presumably declining because of the pollution of water bodies.

“When I first explored the rainforests of Nangaritza River in 2014, I remember thinking the place was an undiscovered and unspoiled paradise,” says Alejandro Arteaga, author of the research study on these snakes, which was published in the journal ZooKeys. “In fact, the place is called Nuevo Paraíso in Spanish, but it is a paradise no more. Hundreds of illegal gold miners using backhoe loaders have now taken possession of the river margins, which are now destroyed and turned into rubble.”

Biologist Alejandro Arteaga examines a snail-eating snake in the museum. Photo by Jorge Castillo

The presence of a conservation area may not be enough to keep the snail-eating snakes safe. In southeastern Ecuador, illegal miners are closing in on Maycu Reserve, ignoring landowner rights and even making violent threats to anyone opposed to the extraction of gold. Even rangers and their families are tempted to quit their jobs to work in illegal mining, as it is much more lucrative. A local park ranger reports that by extracting gold from the Nangaritza River, local people can earn what would otherwise be a year’s salary in just a few weeks. “Sure, it is illegal and out of control, but the authorities are too afraid to intervene,” says the park ranger. “Miners are just too violent and unpredictable.”

Gold mining activities in Napo, Ecuador. Photo by Ivan Castaneira

In Panama, large-scale copper mining is affecting the habitat of two of the new species: Sibon irmelindicaprioae and S. canopy. Unlike the illegal gold miners in Ecuador and Colombia, the extraction in this case is legal and at the hands of a single corporation: Minera Panamá S.A., a subsidiary of the Canadian-based mining and metals company First Quantum Minerals Ltd. Although the forest destruction at the Panamanian mines is larger in extent and can easily be seen from space, its borders are clearly defined and the company is under the purview of local environmental authorities.

Sibon irmelindicaprioae, named after Leonardo DiCaprio’s mother, is the rarest of the lot. It occurs in the Chocó-Darién jungles of eastern Panama and western Colombia. Photo by Alejandro Arteaga of Khamai Foundation.

“Both legal and illegal open-pit mines are uninhabitable for the snail-eating snakes,” says Arteaga, “but the legal mines may be the lesser of two evils. At the very least they respect the limit of nearby protected areas, answer to a higher authority, and are presumably unlikely to enact violence on park rangers, researchers, and conservationists.”

Gold mining activities in Napo province, Ecuador. Photo by Ivan Castaneira

Sibon canopy, one of the newly described species, appears to have fairly stable populations inside protected areas of Panama, although elsewhere nearly 40% of its habitat has been destroyed. At Parque Nacional Omar Torrijos, where it is found, there has been a reduction in the number of park rangers (already very few for such a large protected area). This makes it easier for loggers and poachers to reach previously unspoiled habitats that are essential for the survival of the snakes.

Sibon canopy is named in honor of the Canopy Family system of reserves, particularly its Canopy Lodge in Valle de Antón, Coclé province, Panama. Photo by Alejandro Arteaga

Lack of employment and the high price of gold aggravate the situation. No legal activity can compete against the “gold bonanza.” More and more often, farmers, park rangers, and indigenous people are turning to illegal activities to provide for their families, particularly during crisis situations like the COVID-19 pandemic, when NGO funding was at its lowest.

An Ecuadorian miner shows the gold she has collected and that she will use to pay for any family emergency. Photo by Ivan Castaneira

“These new species of snake are just the tip of the iceberg in terms of new species discoveries in this region, but if illegal mining continues at this rate, there may not be an opportunity to make any future discoveries,” concludes Alejandro Arteaga.

A gold mine in Nangaritza. Photo by Alejandro Arteaga

Fortunately, three NGOs in Ecuador and Panama (Khamai, Nature and Culture International, and Adopta Bosque) have already made it their mission to save the snake’s habitat from the emerging gold mining frenzy. Supporting these organizations is vital, because their quest for immediate land protection is the only way to save the snakes from extinction.

Research article:

Arteaga A, Batista A (2023) A consolidated phylogeny of snail-eating snakes (Serpentes, Dipsadini), with the description of five new species from Colombia, Ecuador, and Panama. ZooKeys 1143: 1-49. https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.1143.93601

Support Khamai Foundation’s mission to save the upper Amazon rainforest from gold mining: https://www.khamai.bio/save_amazon_rainforest_from_gold_mining.html

Support Nature and Culture International: https://www.natureandculture.org

Support Fundación Adopta Bosque: https://adoptabosque.org

Follow ZooKeys on Twitter and Facebook.

Homo sapiens or insapiens? A new insect species from Kosovo cries for help

A new insect species from Kosovo challenges the idea of the intelligence and cleverness of humankind, compared to other organisms, with its scientific name.

Type locality of the new species. Photo by Halil Ibrahimi

Lying at the center of the Balkan Peninsula, Kosovo harbors a diversity of ecosystems and conditions, which have favored processes leading to the existence of many endemic and rare species. In the past few years, several new species of aquatic insects have been discovered from the small Balkan country, making it unique in terms of biodiversity. Unfortunately, as elsewhere in the Balkans, many of these ecosystems have deteriorated heavily.

A team of scientists from Kosovo, led by Professor Halil Ibrahimi of the University of Prishtina, recently found a new species of aquatic insect, a caddisfly, from the Sharr Mountains in Kosovo, and named it Potamophylax humoinsapiens.

The species epithet humoinsapiens is a combination of two Latin words, “humo”, which in English means “to cover with soil, to bury,” and “insapiens,” meaning “unwise”. The researchers explain this name refers to the unwise and careless treatment of the habitats of the new species: hydropower plant, illegal logging and pollution have greatly degraded the area in the past years. “In some segments, whole parts of the Lepenc River are “buried” in large pipes,” they write in their study, which was published in the open-access Biodiversity Data Journal.

Potamophylax humoinsapiens. Photo by Halil Ibrahimi

“The species name ‘humoinsapiens’ ironically sounds like Homo insapiens, and this new species is right in calling us unwise,” thinks Prof. Ibrahimi. “With its actions, humankind has caused the extinction of many species of insects and other organisms during the past decades and has degraded greatly all known ecosystems in the planet. The debate on questioning wise nature of humans is already ongoing.

In the past few years, Professor Halil Ibrahimi and his team have found several new species of aquatic insects from the Balkans, Middle East and North Africa. In an attempt to raise awareness for this group of vulnerable creatures, endangered greatly by human activities, the team of scientists has given their species unique names. One of their previous discoveries was named Potamophylax coronavirus in order to raise the attention to the silent and dangerous “pandemic” humans have caused in freshwater ecosystems in the Balkans.

The research team behind the discovery. Photo by Halil Ibrahimi

“By combining classical taxonomy and modern molecular analysis techniques with the unique names, we are making insect species talk to our collective consciousness. It is in humankind’s capacity to earn the name Homo sapiens again,” the researchers conclude.

The study was financed by the Ministry of Education, Science, Technology and Information of the Republic of Kosovo and was conducted in the Laboratory of Zoology-Department of Biology of the University of Prishtina.

Original source:

Ibrahimi H, Bilalli A, Gashi A, Grapci Kotori L, Slavevska Stamenkovič V, Geci D (2023) Potamophylax humoinsapiens sp. n. (Trichoptera, Limnephilidae), a new species from the Sharr Mountains, Republic of Kosovo. Biodiversity Data Journal 11: e97969. https://doi.org/10.3897/BDJ.11.e97969

Follow Biodiversity Data Journal on Facebook and Twitter.

Seeing off 2022 with another selection of awesome new species

A list of the most exciting biodiversity wins we’ve published in the second half of 2022.

Another year rolled by and we at Pensoft have a lot to celebrate! This year, we marked our 30th birthday, and what a ride it’s been! We thank all of you for sticking around and helping us put biodiversity science in the spotlight where it deserves to be.

The holiday season is always great fun, but for us, every biodiversity or conservation win is reason enough to celebrate. And we’ve had so many this year! We already showed you our top species for the first half of 2022. Here’s an update for the second half with the most exciting new species that we’ve published across our journals:

The elusive owl from a remote island

The Principe scops-owl (Otus bikegila) was discovered on the small island of Príncipe, just off Africa’s western coast. Its existence had been suspected since 1998, but locals said its presence on the island could be traced back to 1928.

The bird is endemic to the island of Príncipe. Furthermore, the research team behind its discovery noted that it can be found only in the remaining old-growth native forest on the island, in an area that largely remains uninhabited.

Otus is the generic name given to a group of small owls sharing a common history, commonly called scops-owls. They are found across Eurasia and Africa, and include such widespread species as the Eurasian scops-owl (Otus scops) and the African scops-owl (Otus senegalensis).

The species epithet “bikegila”, in turn, was chosen in homage of Ceciliano do Bom Jesus, nicknamed Bikegila – a former parrot harvester from Príncipe Island and now a park ranger on the island.The new species quickly became insanely popular, generating memes (a true sign of its popularity!). One website even described it as “a flying meme-generator that sounds like a newborn puppy.”

Published in ZooKeys.

The underground carnivore

Nepenthes pudica is a carnivorous plant that grows prey-trapping contraptions underground, feeding off subterranean creatures such as worms, larvae and beetles.

It belongs to pitcher plants – a group of carnivorous plants with modified leaves (called pitfall traps or pitchers) that help them catch their prey.

Pitcher plants usually produce pitfall traps above ground at the surface of the soil or on trees. N. pudica is the first pitcher plant known to catch its prey underground.

At first, the researchers thought the deformed pitcher protruding from the soil that they saw had accidentally been buried. Only later, when they found additional pitcherless plants, did they consider the possibility that the pitchers might be buried in the soil.

Then, as one of the researchers was taking photos, he tore some moss off the base of a tree and found a handful of pitchers.

The unique plant, however, could already be under threat. As it only lives in one small area of Indonesia, scientists believe it should be classed as Critically Endangered.

Published in PhytoKeys.

The graveyard-dwelling snake

In November 2021, biologist Alejandro Arteaga and his colleagues were traveling through the cloud forests of Ecuador looking for toads, when a local woman told them she had seen odd snakes slithering around a graveyard. Based on her description, the team suspected they might be ground snakes from the genus Atractus, which had never been scientifically recorded in that area of Ecuador.

Indeed, they were able to discover three new snake species living beneath graves and churches in remote towns in the Andes mountains.

The “small, cylindrical, and rather archaic-looking” snakes all belong to a group called ground snakes. In general, not a lot of people are familiar with ground snakes, as they usually remain hidden underground.

All three snakes were named in honor of institutions or people supporting the exploration and conservation of remote cloud forests in the tropics. Atractus zgap, pictured here,  was named in honor of the Zoological Society for the Conservation of Species and Populations (ZGAP), a program seeking to conserve unknown but highly endangered species and their natural habitats throughout the world. 

However, the majority of the native habitat of these new snakes has already been destroyed. As a result of the retreating forest line, the ground snakes find themselves in the need to take refuge in spaces used by humans (both dead and alive), where they usually end up being killed on sight.

Published in ZooKeys.

The beautiful aquarium fish

2022 was a good year for fish diversity! In the first half, we had Cirrhilabrus finifenmaa, in the second half we have Astronotus mikoljii.

Unlike some other participants in this list, this one took a while before it was confirmed as a new species: “We did not discover that it was a new species overnight,” says Oscar Lasso-Alcalá, one of the people behind its discovery.

A. mikoljii is a new species for science, but it is not a “new species” for people who already knew it locally under the name of Pavona, Vieja, or Cupaneca in Venezuela or Pavo Real, Carabazú, Mojarra and Mojarra Negra in Colombia. Nor for the aquarium trade, where it is highly appreciated and has been known by the common name of Oscar.

Moreover, the species has been of great food importance for thousands of years for at least nine indigenous ethnic groups, and for more than 500 years to the hundreds of human communities of locals who inhabit the Orinoco River basin in Venezuela and Colombia. In the plains of Orinoco, it is considered a delicacy “due to its pleasant taste and enhanced texture”.

Oscar Lasso-Alcalá has a special relationship with this fish. “It is more than just a fish in an aquarium since it is considered a true pet,” he says.

Published in ZooKeys.

The spiny-tailed gecko

gecko

Recently, Javier Lobon-Rovira, one of the people behind the discovery of this new gecko, told us what it was like to find this exciting new species: “That night we were tired, so we decided to have a short walk around the camp. And… there it was…! Like a ghost, this small, cryptic, and elusive gecko started  showing up in every big rock boulder.”

Kolekanos spinicaudus is part of Kolekanos, a unique and iconic gecko genus that is only known from southwestern Angola.

Until this discovery, Kolekanos only had one species in the genus, known only from ~200km south of the new discovery, but that species had feathers on its tail, not spines like K. spinicaudus. Immediately, the researchers knew they were dealing with a Kolekanos… but they were astonished to see the spines.

The scientific name “spinicaudus” refers to the unique appearance of the tail of this new species.

K. spinicaudus’s home in southern Angola remains poorly explored, even as it has been considered as an important source of diversification and endemism in West Africa.

Published in ZooKeys.

Honorable mention: the bee with a dog-like snout

“Insects in general are so diverse and so important, yet we don’t have scientific descriptions or names for so many of them,” says Dr Kit Prendergast, from the Curtin School of Molecular and Life Sciences.

The new bee species she discovered, Leioproctus zephyr is excellent proof that we still have a lot to learn about bee biodiversity.

The story behind  L. zephyr’s name is quite interesting – it was named after Zephyr the Maremma dog, Dr Prendergast’s fellow companion. The researcher says Zephyr played an important role in providing emotional support during her PhD. The name also references the dog-like “snout” in the bee’s anatomy that she found rather unusual.

The bee species  was in fact first collected in 1979, but it had to wait until 2022 to be officially described.

However, Dr Prendergast says its future remains uncertain, as it is highly specialised, and has a very restricted, fragmented distribution.

“The Leioproctus zephyr has a highly restricted distribution, only occurring in seven locations across the southwest WA to date, and have not been collected from their original location. They were entirely absent from residential gardens and only present at five urban bushland remnants that I surveyed, where they foraged on two plant species of Jacksonia.”

Published in Journal of Hymenoptera Research.

Honorable mention: Two scorpion species described by high-school citizen scientists

In 2019, California teenagers Harper Forbes and Prakrit Jain were looking at entries on the naturalist social network iNaturalist, when they noticed a mysterious scorpion that a citizen scientist had encountered near a lake in the Mojave Desert. The species had remained unidentified since it was uploaded six years earlier.

The entry that they were looking at was a yet undescribed scorpion species whose name they would add to the fauna of California. Shortly after, they found another entry on iNaturalist that also appeared to be an unknown scorpion species.

The new species, Paruroctonus soda and Paruroctonus conclusus, are playa scorpions, meaning they can only be found around dry lake beds, or playas, from the deserts of Central and Southern California.

The budding naturalists published a formal description of the two species with the help of Lauren Esposito, PhD,  Curator of Arachnology at the California Academy of Sciences.

“These kids can find anything,” Dr Esposito told The Guardian. “You set them out in a landscape and they’re like: ‘Here’s every species of snake, here’s every scorpion, every butterfly,’ and it’s kind of incredible.”

Forbes and Jain were still in high school when they made their groundbreaking discoveries. Now they are in college: Forbes at the University of Arizona studying evolutionary biology and Jain at the University of California, Berkeley, for integrative biology.

Published in ZooKeys.

Scientists highlight safe access to the outdoors with naming of new plant species

The scientific name and English-language common name acknowledge the importance of maintaining equitable and safe access to outdoor spaces for all people.

Dr. Chris Martine, Bucknell’s David Burpee Professor, examining a Solanum scalarium plant at its only currently known location on the Escarpment Walk, Judbarra National Park, Northern Territory, Australia. Photo by Angela McDonnell

A new species of Australian bush tomato described from the Garrarnawun Lookout in Judbarra National Park provides a compelling example of the need to provide equal and safe access to natural places. Bucknell University postdoctoral fellow Tanisha Williams and biology professor Chris Martine led the study following a chance encounter with an unusual population of plants during a 2019 research expedition to the Northern Territory.

Martine, who has studied northern Australia’s bush tomatoes for more than 20 years, immediately sensed that the plants were representative of a not-yet-described species, so he, Angela McDonnell (St. Cloud State University), Jason Cantley (San Francisco State University), and Peter Jobson (Northern Territory Herbarium in Alice Springs) combed the local area for plants to closely study and make research collections from. The task was made easier by the fact that the Garrarnawun Lookout is accessible by a set of dozens of human-made stone steps running directly from the unpaved parking area to the peak of the sandstone outcrop – without which the new species might have otherwise gone unnoticed.

The botanists were able to collect numerous new specimens and have now published the new species description in the open-access journal PhytoKeys, choosing the name Solanum scalarium as a nod to the steps leading to the plant and the unusual ladder-like prickles that adorn the flowering stems. The Latin “scalarium” translates to “ladder”, “staircase” or “stairs.”

Photo of Solanum scalarium, a newly-described bush tomato species from the Northern Territory, Australia, showing the unusual ladder-like arrangement of prickles on male floral stems. Plants grown in the Rooke Biology Research Greenhouse at Bucknell University were closely studied by undergraduate student Jonathan Hayes (Biology ‘22) under the supervision of Drs. Tanisha Williams and Chris Martine. Photo by J. Hayes

“This Latin name does relate to the appearance of this species, how it looks,” says first-author Williams. “But it is also a way for us to acknowledge how important it is to create ways for people to interact with nature; not just scientists like us, but everyone.”

Solanum scalarium: immature green fruits enclosed in prickly calyx. Photo by Angela McDonnell

According to the authors, a recent study done by the Department of Local Government, Sport and Cultural Industries in Western Australia found that 8 in 10 people felt it is important to have access to natural spaces, both locally and outside of their current jurisdictions. However, one in three persons felt dissatisfied with the current outdoor spaces available to them and many identified barriers to access and participation in outdoor activities that include urbanization – which is especially credited for the growing number of Australians that lack outdoor experiences.

Importantly, the awareness of who has access and feels safe to participate in outdoor activities is being recognized throughout Australia and the lack of diversity in participation from culturally diverse and marginalized populations has been identified as an issue. Key indices such as ethnic background, socio-economic status, physical abilities and gender, are indicators of low outdoor recreation participation.

“These disparities of who are and are not participating and who feels safe and welcomed are artifacts of historic and current environmental and social injustices,” notes Williams. “To overcome these injustices and increase access and participation from diverse groups, intentional and targeted efforts are needed to provide a range of outdoor experiences that attract people from all of the 270 plus ancestries with which Australians identify with and special attention should be placed on groups historically excluded from outdoor spaces.”

Dr. Tanisha Williams, Bucknell’s Richard E. and Yvonne Smith Post-doctoral Fellow,  on the rim of the Wolfe Creek Meteorite Crater during fieldwork in Western Australia in June 2022. Photo by Chris Martine

Also now known as the Garrarnawun Bush Tomato, Solanum scalarium is a distant cousin of the cultivated eggplant and a close relative to a number of other Australian species recently discovered by Martine and colleagues that were also published in PhytoKeys including Solanum plastisexum, named to reflect the diversity of sex forms across Earth’s organisms; and Solanum watneyi, named for the space botanist of the book/film The Martian. 

The scientists hope that the naming of this latest new species highlights the importance of building community around natural spaces.

Solanum scalarium in the field, type locality. Photos by Angela McDonnell

“We suggest the use of Garrarnawun Bush Tomato for the English-language common name of the species,” the authors write, “In recognition of the Garrarnawun Lookout near where the type collection was made, a traditional meeting place of the Wardaman and Nungali-Ngaliwurru peoples whose lands overlap in this area.”

Access to nature is not just a concern in Australia.

“In the United States, where most of the authors of this paper are located, “access” is one thing but safety and equitability are another,” says Martine, “The U.S. National Parks Service reports that around 95% of those who visit federal parks are white. Meanwhile, African Americans, Latinos, women, and members of the LGBTQIA+ communities often report feeling unwelcome or unsafe in outdoor spaces.”

“If African Americans, for example, are already apprehensive in a country where they make up 13% of the population, it should be understandable that they are hesitant to be part of a community where they represent as little as 1% of participants.”

Dr. Tanisha Williams, Bucknell’s Richard E. and Yvonne Smith Post-doctoral Fellow, and Dr. Chris Martine, Bucknell’s David Burpee Professor, in Western Australia in June 2022. Photo by Claire Marino

Williams suggests that James Edward Mills, author of The Adventure Gap (2014) put it best:

“It’s not enough to say that the outdoors is free and open for everyone to enjoy. Of course it is! But after four centuries of racial oppression and discrimination that systematically made Black Americans fear for their physical safety, we must also make sure that we create a natural environment where people of color can not only feel welcome but encouraged to become active participants as outdoor enthusiasts and stewards dedicated to the protection of the land.”

Recent Bucknell graduate Jonathan Hayes, who measured and analyzed the physical characters of the new species using plants grown from seed in a campus greenhouse, joins Williams, McDonnell, Cantley, Jobson, and Martine as a co-author on the publication.

Research Article:

Williams TM, Hayes J, McDonnell AJ, Cantley JT, Jobson P, Martine CT (2022) Solanum scalarium (Solanaceae), a newly-described dioecious bush tomato from Judbarra/Gregory National Park, Northern Territory, Australia. PhytoKeys 216: 103-116. https://doi.org/10.3897/phytokeys.216.85972

🥳 Here goes THE title in our New Species Showdown!

From the kingdom of plants, welcome the all-time crowd-favourite species ever described in a Pensoft journal!

Which one is the species that springs to mind when you think about the most awesome discoveries in recent times?

In an age where we more than ever need to appreciate and preserve the magnificent biodiversity inhabiting the Earth, we decided to go for a lighter and fun take on the work of taxonomists that often goes unnoticed by the public. 

From the ocean depths surrounding Indonesia to the foliage of the native forests of Príncipe Island and into the soils of Borneo, we started with 16 species described as new to science in journals published by Pensoft over the years. 

Out of these most amazing creatures, over the past several weeks we sought to find who’s got the greatest fandom by holding a poll on Twitter (you can follow it further down here or via #NewSpeciesShowdown).

Grand Finale – here comes the champion!

Truly, we couldn’t have a more epic final!

The two competitors come from two kingdoms, two opposite sides of the globe, and the “pages” of two journals, namely PhytoKeys and Evolutionary Systematics.

While we need to admit that we ourselves expected to crown an animal as the crowd-favourite, we take the opportunity to congratulate the botanists amongst our fans for the well-deserved win of Nepenthes pudica (see the species description)!

Find more about the curious one-of-a-kind pitcher plant in this blog post, where we announced its discovery following the new species description in PhytoKeys in June 2022:

Underground carnivore: the first species of pitcher plant to dine on subterranean prey

Back then, N. pudica gave a good sign about its worldwide web appeal, when it broke the all-time record for online popularity in a competition with all plant species described in PhytoKeys over the journal’s 22-year history of taxonomic papers comrpising over 200 issues.

What’s perhaps even more curious, is that there is only one species EVER described in a Pensoft-published journal that has so far triggered more tweets than the pitcher plant, and that species is the animal that has ended up in second place in the New Species Showdown: a tiny amphibian living in Peru, commonly known as the the Amazon Tapir Frog (Synapturanus danta). Which brings us once again to the influence of botanists in taxonomic research.

Read more about its discovery in the blog post from February 2022:

Frog with tapir-like nose found in Amazon rainforest

Another thing that struck us during the tournament was that there was only one species described in our flagship journal in systematic journal ZooKeys: the supergiant isopod Bathynomus raksasa, that managed to fight its way to the semi-finals, where it lost against S. danta.

This makes us especially proud with our diverse and competitive journal portfolio full of titles dedicated to biodiversity and taxonomic research!

The rules

Twice a week, @Pensoft would announce a match between two competing species on Twitter using the hashtag #NewSpeciesShowdown, where everyone could vote in the poll for their favourie.

Disclaimer

This competition is for entertainment purposes only. As it was tremendously tough to narrow the list down to only sixteen species, we admit that we left out a lot of spectacular creatures.

To ensure fairness and transparency, we made the selection based on the yearly Altmetric data, which covers articles in our journals published from 2010 onwards and ranks the publications according to their online mentions from across the Web, including news media, blogs and social networks. 

We did our best to diversify the list as much as possible in terms of taxonomic groups. However, due to the visual-centric nature of social media, we gave preference to immediately attractive species.

All battles:

(in chronological order)

Round 1
The first tie of the New Species Showdown was between the olinguito: Bassaricyon neblina (see species description) and the “snow-coated” tussock moth Ivela yini (see species description).
In the second battle, we faced two marine species discovered in the Indian Ocean and described in ZooKeys. The supergiant isopod B. raksasa (see species description) won against the Rose Fariy Wrasse C. finifenmaa (see species description) with strong 75%.
In the third battle, we faced two frog species: the tapir ‘chocolate’ frog described in Evolutionary Systematics (see species description) winning against the ‘glass frog’ described in Zookeys (see species description) with 73%.
With 62% of the votes, the two-species tournament saw the Harryplax severus crab grab the win against another species named after a great wizard from the Harry Potter universe: the Salazar’s pit viper, which was described in the journal Zoosystematics and Evolution in 2020. The “unusual” crustacean was described back in 2017 in ZooKeys. As its species characters matched no genus known to date, the species also established the Harryplax genus.
With the fifth battle in the New Species Showdown taking us to the Kingdom of Plants, we enjoyed a great battle between the first pitcher plant found to grow its pitchers underground to dine (see the full study) and the Demon’s orchid, described in 2016 from a single population spread across a dwarf montane forest in southern Colombia (read the study). Both species made the headlines across the news media around the world following their descriptions in our flagship botany journal PhytoKeys.
Next, we saw the primitive dipluran Haplocampa wagnelli (read its species description in Subterranean Biology) – a likely survivor of the Ice Age thanks to the caves of Canada – win the public in a duel against Xuedytes bellus (described in ZooKeys in 2017), also known as the Most cave-adapted trechine beetle in the world!
We had a close battle between the Principe Scops-owl Otus bikegila (see species description published in our ZooKeys earlier in 2022) and the blue-tailed Monitor lizard Varanus semotus (also first ‘known’ from the pages of ZooKeys, 2016). Being adorable species, but also ‘castaways’ on isolated islands in the Atlantic, they made great sensations upon their discovery. In fact, the reptile won with a single vote!
In the last battle of Round 1, the ‘horned’ tarantula C. attonitifer claimed the victory with a strong (80%) advantage from its competitor with a rebel name: the freshwater crayfish C. snowden (species description in ZooKeys from 2015). Described in African Invertebrates in 2019, the arachnid might be one amongst many ‘horned’ baboon spiders, yet there was something quite extraordinary about its odd protuberance. Furthermore, it came to demonstrate how little we know about the fauna of Angola:  a largely underexplored country located at the intersection of several ecoregions.
Round 2 – Quarter-finals
In the first quarter-final round, in the close battle, the isopod ’emerged’ from the ocean depths of Indonesia B. raksasa (species description in Zookeys from 2020) claimed the victory with just a few votes difference (58%!) from its competitor: lovely olinguito B. neblina, also described in Zookeys but back in 2013.
In the second round of the quarter-final, the tapir ‘chocolate’ frog S. danta (described in Evolutionary Systematics this year) claimed the victory with a significant advantage (69%) over its competitor crab H. severus described in Zookeys in 2017.
The third battle in Round 2 secured a place at the semi-finals for the only plant to get this far in the New Species Showdown. If you are dedicated to the mission of proving the plant kingdom superior: keep supporting Nepenthes pudica in the semi-finals and beyond!
In the meantime, read the full description of the species, published in our PhytoKeys in June.
The last quarter-final send the Angolan ‘horned’ tarantula to the next round. Described in African Invertebrates in 2019, its discovery would have likely remained a secret had it not been for the local tribes who provided the research team with crucial information about the curious arachnid.
Round 3 – Semi-finals
Curiously enough, by winning against the ‘supergiant’ isopod B. raksasa – also known around the Internet as the ‘Darth Vader of the seas’ – the Amazonian anuran S. danta outcompetes the last species in the New Species Showdown representing our flagship taxonomy journal: ZooKeys.

The charming anuran was described in February 2022 in Evolutionary Systematics, a journal dedicated to whole-organism biology that we publish on behalf of the Leibniz Institute for the Analysis of Biodiversity Change (LIB).
In a dramatic turn of events, the tight match between the Angolan tarantula C. attonitifer , whose ‘horn’ protruding from its back surprised the scientists because of its unique structure and soft texture, and the first pitcher plant whose ‘traps’ can be found underground in Borneo, ended up with the news that the New Species Showdown will be concluding with a battle between the kingdoms Animalia and Plantae! What a denouement!

The record-breaking plant was described in June 2022 in PhytoKeys: a journal launched by Pensoft in 2010 with the mission to introduce fast, linked and open publishing to plant taxonomy.
THE FINAL
And here we were at the finish line.
But why did we hold the tournament right now?

If you have gone to the Pensoft website at any point in 2022, visited our booth at a conference, or received a newsletter from any of our journals, by this time, you must be well aware that in 2022 – more precisely, on 25 December – we turned 30. And we weren’t afraid to show it!

Pensoft’s team happy to showcase the 30-year story of the company at various events this year.
Left: Maria Kolesnikova at the annual Biodiversity Information Standards (TDWG 2022) conference, hosted by Pensoft in Sofia, Bulgaria. Right: Iva Boyadzhieva at the XXVI International Congress of Entomology (ICE 2022) in Helsinki, Finland.

Indeed, 30 is not that big of a number, as many of us adult humans can confirm. Yet, we take pride in reminiscing about what we’ve done over the last three decades. 

The truth is, 30 years ago, we wouldn’t have been able to picture this day, let alone think that we’d be sharing it with all of you: our journal readers, authors, editors and reviewers, collaborators in innovation, project partners, and advisors. 

Long story short, we wanted to do something special and fun to wrap up our anniversary year. While we have been active in various areas, including development of publishing technology concerning open and FAIR access and linkage for research outcomes and underlying data; and multiple EU-supported scientific projects, we have always been associated with our biodiversity journal portfolio.

Besides, who doesn’t like to learn about the latest curious creature that has evaded scientific discovery throughout human history up until our days? 😉

Now, follow the #NewSpeciesShowdown to join the contest!

A Needle in a Coastal Haystack

A tiny species known only from fossils is found alive in the tidepools of Santa Barbara.

Discovering a new species is always exciting, but so is finding one alive that everyone assumed had been lost to the passage of time. A small clam, previously known only from fossils, has recently been found living at Naples Point, just up the coast from UC Santa Barbara. The discovery appears in the journal ZooKeys.

“It’s not all that common to find alive a species first known from the fossil record, especially in a region as well-studied as Southern California,” said co-author Jeff Goddard, a research associate at UC Santa Barbara’s Marine Science Institute. “Ours doesn’t go back anywhere near as far as the famous Coelacanth or the deep-water mollusk Neopilina galatheae — representing an entire class of animals thought to have disappeared 400 million years ago — but it does go back to the time of all those wondrous animals captured by the La Brea Tar Pits.”

Jeff Goddard with students. Photo Credit: 
Courtesy Image

On an afternoon low tide in November 2018, Goddard was turning over rocks searching for nudibranch sea slugs at Naples Point, when a pair of small, translucent bivalves caught his eye. “Their shells were only 10 millimeters long,” he said. “But when they extended and started waving about a bright white-striped foot longer than their shell, I realized I had never seen this species before.” This surprised Goddard, who has spent decades in California’s intertidal habitats, including many years specifically at Naples Point. He immediately stopped what he was doing to take close-up photos of the intriguing animals.

“I was surprised and intrigued. This was something I’d never seen before.”

Paul Valentich-Scott

With quality images in hand, Goddard decided not to collect the animals, which appeared to be rare. After pinning down their taxonomic family, he sent the images to Paul Valentich-Scott, curator emeritus of malacology at the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History. “I was surprised and intrigued,” Valentich-Scott recalled. “I know this family of bivalves (Galeommatidae) very well along the coast of the Americas. This was something I’d never seen before.”

He mentioned a few possibilities to Goddard, but said he’d need to see the animal in-person to make a proper assessment. So, Goddard returned to Naples Point to claim his clam. But after two hours combing just a few square meters, he still hadn’t caught sight of his prize. The species would continue to elude him many more times.

Nine trips later, in March 2019, and nearly ready to give up for good, Goddard turned over yet another rock and saw the needle in the haystack. A single specimen, next to a couple of small white nudibranchs and a large chiton. Valentich-Scott would get his specimen at last, and the pair could finally set to work on identification.

A dazzling play of colors highlights Southern California’s long lost clam. Photo Credit: 
Jeff Goddard

Valentich-Scott was even more surprised once he got his hands on the shell. He knew it belonged to a genus with one member in the Santa Barbara region, but this shell didn’t match any of them. It raised the exciting possibility that they had found a new species.

“This really started ‘the hunt’ for me,” Valentich-Scott said. “When I suspect something is a new species, I need to track back through all of the scientific literature from 1758 to the present. It can be a daunting task, but with experience it can go pretty quickly.”

The two researchers decided to check out an intriguing reference to a fossil species. They tracked down illustrations of the bivalve Bornia cooki from the paper describing the species in 1937. It appeared to match the modern specimen. If confirmed, this would mean that Goddard had found not a new species, but a sort of living fossil.

Cymatioa cooki. Photo credit: VALENTICH-SCOTT ET AL.

It is worth noting that the scientist who described the species, George Willett, estimated he had excavated and examined perhaps 1 million fossil specimens from the same location, the Baldwin Hills in Los Angeles. That said, he never found B. cooki himself. Rather, he named it after Edna Cook, a Baldwin Hills collector who had found the only two specimens known.

Valentich-Scott requested Willett’s original specimen (now classified as Cymatioa cooki) from the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. This object, called the “type specimen,” serves to define the species, so it’s the ultimate arbiter of the clam’s identification.

The type specimen that George Willett used to originally describe the species. Photo credit: VALENTICH-SCOTT ET AL.

Meanwhile, Goddard found another specimen at Naples Point — a single empty shell in the sand underneath a boulder. After carefully comparing the specimens from Naples Point with Willett’s fossil, Valentich-Scott concluded they were the same species. “It was pretty remarkable,” he recalled.

Small size and cryptic habitat notwithstanding, all of this begs the question of how the clam eluded detection for so long. “There is such a long history of shell-collecting and malacology in Southern California — including folks interested in the harder to find micro-mollusks — that it’s hard to believe no one found even the shells of our little cutie,” Goddard said.

He suspects the clams may have arrived here on currents as planktonic larvae, carried up from the south during marine heatwaves from 2014 through 2016. These enabled many marine species to extend their distributions northward, including several documented specifically at Naples Point. Depending on the animal’s growth rate and longevity, this could explain why no one had noticed C. cooki at the site prior to 2018, including Goddard, who has worked on nudibranchs at Naples Point since 2002.

“The Pacific coast of Baja California has broad intertidal boulder fields that stretch literally for miles,” Goddard said, “and I suspect that down there Cymatioa cooki is probably living in close association with animals burrowing beneath those boulders.”

Research article:

Valentich-Scott P, Goddard JHR (2022) A fossil species found living off southern California, with notes on the genus Cymatioa (Mollusca, Bivalvia, Galeommatoidea). ZooKeys 1128: 53-62. https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.1128.95139

Press release originally published by UC Santa Barbara. Republished with permission.

Follow ZooKeys on Facebook and Twitter.

Leaves and Spines: A new spiny-tailed leaf-toed gecko from the unexplored coastal savanna of Angola

A random survey in a poorly explored region of the southern Benguela Province of Angola, led to the discovery of a unique new spiny-tailed leaf-toed gecko.

Guest blog post by Javier Lobon-Rovira

After the long, hard days of fieldwork in the arid coastal region of southern Angola, Angolan researcher Pedro Vaz Pinto and his enthusiastic son Afonso, found the best spot to spend the night before heading back home. In the area of Carivo, every night was different: after four visits to this unique place, a different gecko species always showed up to add to the growing species list.

On a random night in August 2021, they went for a routine night walks and came across this unique gecko. In shock, Pedro immediately started sharing photos with the coauthors, Werner and Javier. “Guys, I think I found a new Kolekanos” he said.

Kolekanos is a unique and iconic gecko genus in Africa and more specifically only known from southwestern Angola. Kolekanos plumicaudus was described by one of the most recognized herpetologists in Africa, the late Wulf Haacke (1936– 2021).

Feather-tailed Kolekanos was at that point a monotypic genus (only one species in the genus), known only from ~200km south of the new discovery. Immediately, we all knew that what we were looking in that photo was something different from the known K. plumicaudus. “It is a Kolekanos… but, those are spines in the tail, not feathers…” was one of the most common reactions that night. So, we started planning our next trip to the area.

Three months later we were back at Carivo, now focusing on finding more specimens of that unique gecko. After only one hour, we spotted at least six specimens among the semi-dessert vegetations and rocks. At that moment, all doubt went away. The behavior and habitat of the new gecko was completely distinctive in comparison with K. plumicaudus.

Then, with our goal achieved and based on the big success of the first night, we planned to go back through different areas to explore some of the most remote regions in Northern Namibe and southern Benguela provinces. After two days driving on impossible roads, the team reached Ekongo. That night we were tired, so we decided to have a short walk around the camp. And… there it was…! Like a ghost, this small, cryptic, and elusive gecko started  showing up in every big rock boulder. 

This study, now published in the journal ZooKeys, also highlights how poorly explored and understood some regions of Angola remain, even as it has been considered as an important source of diversification and endemism in West Africa.

New unusual bee species discovered with dog-like snout

Published in the Journal of Hymenoptera Research, author Dr Kit Prendergast named the new species after her pet dog Zephyr.

A new native bee species with a dog-like “snout” has been discovered in Perth bushland though Curtin-led research that sheds new light on our most important pollinators.

Published in the Journal of Hymenoptera Research, author Dr Kit Prendergast, from the Curtin School of Molecular and Life Sciences, has named the new species after her pet dog Zephyr after noticing a protruding part of the insect’s face looked similar to a dog’s snout, and to acknowledge the role her dog played in providing emotional support during her PhD.

Dr Prendergast said the rare and remarkable finding would add to existing knowledge about our evolving biodiversity and ensure the bees, named Leioproctus zephyr, were protected by conservation efforts.

“When I first examined the specimens that I collected during my PhD surveys discovering the biodiversity of native bees in urbanised regions of the southwest WA biodiversity hotspot, I was instantly intrigued by the bee’s very unusual face,” Dr Prendergast said.

Insects in general are so diverse and so important, yet we don’t have scientific descriptions or names for so many of them.

Dr Kit Prendergast

“When I went to identify it, I found it matched no described species, and I was sure that if it was a known species, it would be quite easy to identify given how unusual it was in appearance.

“You can only confirm a particular species once you look at them under a microscope and go through the long process of trying to match their characteristics against other identified species, then going through museum collections.

“When perusing the WA Museum’s Entomology collection, I discovered that a few specimens of Leioproctus zephyrus had first been collected in 1979, but it had never been scientifically described.”

Dr Prendergast said she was excited to play a role in making this species known and officially naming them.

“Insects in general are so diverse and so important, yet we don’t have scientific descriptions or names for so many of them,” Dr Prendergast said.

“The Leioproctus zephyr has a highly restricted distribution, only occurring in seven locations across the southwest WA to date, and have not been collected from their original location. They were entirely absent from residential gardens and only present at five urban bushland remnants that I surveyed, where they foraged on two plant species of Jacksonia.

“Not only is this species fussy, they also have a clypeus that looks like a snout. Hence, I named them after my dog Zephyr. She has been so important to my mental health and wellbeing during the challenging period of doing a PhD and beyond.”

Through DNA barcoding, Dr Prendergast was able to confirm that the new species was most closely related to other species of unidentified Leioproctus.

Originally published by Curtin University. Republished with permission.

Follow the Journal of Hymenoptera Research on Facebook and Twitter.

New species of owl discovered in the rainforests of Príncipe Island, Central Africa 

The Principe Scops-Owl, the eighth known bird species endemic to the island, has a unique call and lives in a restricted range in the Príncipe Obô Natural Park.

A new species of owl has just been described from Príncipe Island, part of the Democratic Republic of São Tomé and Príncipe in Central Africa. Scientists were first able to confirm its presence in 2016, although suspicions of its occurrence gained traction from 1998, and testimonies from local people suggesting its existence could be traced back as far as 1928. 

Otus bikegila. Photo by Martim Melo

The new owl species was described in the open-access journal ZooKeys based on multiple lines of evidence such as morphology, plumage colour and pattern, vocalisations, and genetics. Data was gathered and processed by an international team led by Martim Melo (CIBIO and Natural History and Science Museum of the University of Porto), Bárbara Freitas (CIBIO and the Spanish National Museum of Natural Sciences) and Angelica Crottini (CIBIO).

Bárbara Freitas, Bikegila and Martim Melo pose with an owl. Photo by Martim Melo

The bird is now officially known as the Principe Scops-Owl, or Otus bikegila.

“Otus” is the generic name given to a group of small owls sharing a common history, commonly called scops-owls. They are found across Eurasia and Africa and include such widespread species as the Eurasian Scops-Owl (Otus scops) and the African Scops-Owl (Otus senegalensis). 

Bikegila. Photo by Martim Melo

The scientists behind the discovery further explain that the species epithet “bikegila” was chosen in homage of Ceciliano do Bom Jesus, nicknamed Bikegila – a former parrot harvester from Príncipe Island and now a ranger of its natural park. 

“The discovery of the Principe Scops-Owl was only possible thanks to the local knowledge shared by Bikegila and by his unflinching efforts to solve this long-time mystery,” the researchers say. “As such, the name is also meant as an acknowledgment to all locally-based field assistants who are crucial in advancing the knowledge on the biodiversity of the world.”

Martim Melo and Bikegila. Photo by Alexandre Vaz

In the wild, the easiest way to recognise one would be its unique call – in fact, it was one of the main clues leading to its discovery. 

“Otus bikegila‘s unique call is a short “tuu” note repeated at a fast rate of about one note per second, reminiscent of insect calls. It is often emitted in duets, almost as soon as the night has fallen,” Martim Melo explains.

Otus bikegila’s call. Recording by Martim Melo

The entire Principe Island was extensively surveyed to determine the distribution and population size of the new species. Results, published in the journal Bird Conservation International, show that the Principe Scops-Owl is found only in the remaining old-growth native forest of Príncipe in the uninhabited southern part of the island. There, it occupies an area of about 15 km2, apparently due to a preference for lower elevations. In this small area (about four times the size of Central Park), the densities of the owl are relatively high, with the population estimated at around 1000-1500 individuals.

The difficult terrain of the uninhabited southern forests of Príncipe Island, home to the Príncipe Scops-Owl, was somewhat immortalised by José Correia, Portuguese collector for the American Museum of Natural History, when collecting there in 1928. He wrote in his diary: “I have been in very bad fields ready, but this is bad among the bad or worse among the worse”. Photo by Alexandre Vaz

Nevertheless, because all individuals of the species occur in this single and very small location (of which a part will be affected in the near future by the construction of a small hydro-electric dam), researchers have proposed that the species should be classified as ‘Critically Endangered’, the highest threat level on the IUCN Red List. This recommendation must still be evaluated by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

Otus Bikegila. Photo by Martim Melo

Monitoring the population will be essential to get more precise estimates of its size and follow its trends. For this purpose, a survey protocol relying on the deployment of automatic recording units and AI to retrieve the data from these has been designed and successfully tested.

“The discovery of a new species that is immediately evaluated as highly threatened illustrates well the current biodiversity predicament”, the researchers say. “On a positive note, the area of occurrence of the Principe Scops-Owl is fully included within the Príncipe Obô Natural Park, which will hopefully help secure its protection.”

A view of the owl’s habitat. Photo by Martim Melo

This is the eighth known species of bird endemic to Príncipe, further highlighting the unusually high level of bird endemism for this island of only 139 km2.

Otus Bikegila. Photo by Paul van Giersbergen

Even though a new species of scops-owl was just described from Príncipe, genetic data indicated that the island was, surprisingly, likely the first in the Gulf of Guinea to be colonised by a species of scops-owl.

“Although it may seem odd for a bird species to remain undiscovered for science for so long on such a small island, this is by no means an isolated case when it comes to owls,” the researchers state. “For example, the Anjouan Scops-Owl was rediscovered in 1992, 106 years after its last observation, on Anjouan Island (also known as Ndzuani) in the Comoro Archipelago, and the Flores Scops-Owl was rediscovered in 1994, 98 years after the previous report.”

 “The discovery of a new bird species is always an occasion to celebrate and an opportunity to reach out to the general public on the subject of biodiversity,” says Martim Melo. “In this age of human-driven extinction, a major global effort should be undertaken to document what may soon not be anymore,” he and his team state in their paper.

Otus bikegila. Photo by Philippe Verbelen

“Birds are likely the best studied animal group. As such, the discovery of a new bird species in the 21st century underscores both the actuality of field-based explorations aiming at describing biodiversity, and how such curiosity-driven endeavour is more likely to succeed when coupled with local ecological knowledge, the participation of keen amateur naturalists, and persistence,” they add.

They believe that this “new wave of exploration, carried out by professionals and amateurs alike”, will help rekindle the link to the natural world, which will be essential to help revert the global biodiversity crisis.

Research article:

Melo M, Freitas B, Verbelen P, da Costa SR, Pereira H, Fuchs J, Sangster G, Correia MN, de Lima RF, Crottini A (2022) A new species of scops-owl (Aves, Strigiformes, Strigidae, Otus) from Príncipe Island (Gulf of Guinea, Africa) and novel insights into the systematic affinities within Otus. ZooKeys 1126: 1-54. https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.1126.87635

Interview: description of two African shovel-snout snakes from Angola

The small number of collected samples, coupled with the animals’ curious skull structure and anomalous ecology, has puzzled scientists for decades.

Recently, our journal ZooKeys published a paper describing two new species of African Shovel-snout snakes: Prosymna confusa, endemic to dry habitats in southwestern Angola, and P. lisima, associated with the Kalahari sands.

We interviewed the authors of the study to find out how they made this discovery and what it means for biodiversity. Werner Conradie (South Africa), the leader of the project, collected most of the specimens and did all the morphological examinations and taxonomy work. Chad Keates (South Africa) conducted the molecular analysis, Javier Lobon-Roviara (Spain) did the CT-scanning skull reconstruction, and Ninda Baptista (Angola) performed fieldwork.

Live P. lisima sp. nov. from eastern Angola.

Interview with Werner Conradie, Chad Keates, Ninda L. Baptista, and Javier Lobón-Rovira

Why has the taxonomy of African Shovel-snout snakes been so complicated?

While widespread, the group is infrequently encountered, resulting in a relatively low number of samples being collected through time. This, coupled with the animals’ curious skull structure and anomalous ecology, has puzzled scientists for decades. While we finally seem to have a grip on the higher-level taxonomy (their relatedness to other snakes), their relations among each other remain incomplete. One thing is for sure, the next few years will likely result in the discovery and description of many more.

Live P. confusa. Photo by Bill Branch

Please walk us through your research process.

Similar to solving a puzzle, the process starts off by acquiring the pieces. The pieces come in the form of samples, collected by us and by scientists, accessioned in museums all over the world. Once all the pieces are in one place, it becomes our job to piece them all together and build a picture of the taxonomy of the group. We start in the corners, ironing out our hypotheses. Once we have the outline, a theory of the species composition of the group, we get to work building the puzzle using evidence from multiple different species concepts.

Snapshots from the field.

We use genetics, morphology, ecology, and skull osteology and through fitting these concepts together we start to see our species and the boundaries between them. Large chunks of the puzzle begin to take shape, revealing our picture with ever-increasing clarity. As we find, orientate, and fit the last pieces of our puzzle through the creation and completion of the manuscript, we finish the puzzle and in doing so provide you with the complete picture: the updated taxonomy of Angolan shovel-snout snakes.

When did you realize you were dealing with new-to-science species?

It’s hard to pinpoint exactly, but the idea grew from the moment Werner Conradie picked up the first snake whilst on the first expedition with the Okavango Wilderness Project, back in 2016. Funded by National Geographic and managed by the Wild Bird Trust, this paper would not be possible without them, because without the transport and logistical support, most of our dataset would never have been found.

Live P. lisima sp. nov. from eastern Angola.

What makes these new species unique?

With the aid of modern nano computerised tomography scanning technology, we observed that one of the new species has a well-developed postorbital bone. We still don’t know the purpose of this postorbital bone and why it is absent in the others. We believe it might serve as additional muscle attachment points that aids them on feeding on different kinds of lizard eggs than the others.

Kalahari Shovel-snout snake (Prosymna lisima) from southeastern Angola. Photo by Chad Keates

This is also the first new species of Shovel-snouted snake described in nearly 30 years.

In the late 1980’s Zimbabwean herpetologist, Donald Broadley noted that eastern populations of the Angolan Shovel-snouted snake may be a different species. It took nearly 50 years before more material was collected and with the aid of modern technology, like genetic analysis and CT-scanning, we could show he was correct and described it as a new species.  

What can you tell us about their appearance and behavior?

The Shovel-snouted snakes are unique snakes with a beak-like snout that allow them to dig into sandier soils. Thus most of the time they are below the surface and only come out after heavy rains. They also possess unique backward pointed lancet-shaped teeth that they use for cutting open lizard eggs. These snakes specialize in feeding mostly on soft-shell lizard eggs. They find a freshly laid clutch of eggs and one by one, they swallow them whole. They cut them laterally so that the yolk can be released.

Kalahari Shovel-snout snake (Prosymna lisima) from southeastern Angola. Photo by Chad Keates

Do they interact with people?

These snakes may be encountered by people tending to their lands or crossing the road, but, for the most part, they are incredibly secretive. Because of their ability to burrow in soft soils, these animals are infrequently encountered, only forced to the surface during heavy rain and by the urge to breed and to feed. If encountered, however, these snakes pose absolutely no harm, as they possess no venom. When threatened, these animals may wind themselves into a tight coil to protect their heads.

Kalahari Shovel-snout snake (Prosymna lisima) from southeastern Angola. Photo by Chad Keates

What is the ecological role of these snakes?

Much like most small vertebrates, these animals form an important component of the food web. They consume lizard eggs, exerting a regulatory force on newborn lizards, and serve as food for larger snakes, rodents, and birds. Animals like these form the bedrock of any healthy ecosystem as they contribute to energy exchanges and the flow of nutrients down and up and down again.

Bonus question: how did you get involved in herpetology?

Everyone in the group has a soft spot for reptiles and amphibians’. Irrespective of our contrasting upbringing and our nation of origin, we all came to herpetology independently. While it is hard to unpack the moment that we all fell in love with these weird and wonderful creatures, one thing is for sure, it’s a lifetime commitment.

About the Authors

Werner Conradie holds a Masters in Environmental Science (M. Env. Sc.) and has 17 years of experience with southern African herpetofauna, with his main research interests focusing on the taxonomy, conservation, and ecology of amphibians and reptiles. Werner has published numerous principal and collaborative scientific papers, and has served on a number of conservation and scientific panels, including the Southern African Reptile and Amphibian Relisting Committees. He has undertaken research expeditions to many African countries including Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. Werner is currently the Curator of Herpetology at the Port Elizabeth Museum (Bayworld), South Africa.

Chad Keates is a post-doctoral fellow at the African herpetology lab at Port Elizabeth museum (Nelson Mandela University, based in the SAIAB Genetics Platform). Having recently completed his PhD in Zoology, Chad’s research focusses are African herpetofauna and their evolutionary and ecological structuring. In Chad’s short professional career, he has published several principal and collaborative peer-reviewed scientific papers and book chapters. Chad is also a strong advocate for reptile and amphibian awareness and regularly conducts walks, talks and presentations as well as produces numerous popular scientific outputs on the subject. He has undertaken numerous expeditions to many African countries such as Angola, Zambia and South Africa with a variety of both professional and scientific organisations.

Ninda Baptista is an Angolan biologist, holds an MSc degree in Conservation Biology from the University of Lisbon, and is currently enrolled for a PhD in Biodiversity, Genetics and Evolution in the University of Porto, addressing the diversity of Angolan amphibians. Over the last 12 years she has worked on environmental consulting, research and in-situ conservation projects in Angola, including priority areas for conservation such as Kumbira, Mount Moco and the Humpata plateau. She conducted herpetological surveys throughout the country and created a herpetological collection (Colecção Herpetológica do Lubango), currently deposited in Instituto Superior de Ciências da Educação da Huíla (ISCED – Huíla). Ninda is an author of scientific papers and book chapters on Angolan herpetology and ornithology. She also works on scientific outreach, producing magazine articles, books for children and posters about the country’s biodiversity in collaboration with Fundação Kissama.

Javier Lobón-Rovira is PhD student at Cibio, Portugal, working to unveil evolutionary pattern in southern Africa gekkonids. As Biologist he has worked in different conservation projects and groups around the globe, including reptiles and amphibians at Veragua Rainforest Foundation, Costa Rica or big mammals in Utah, USA. However, as photographer, he has collaborated with different Conservation NGOs in Africa, America and Europe and manage to publish on International Journals as National Geographic, Africa Geographic or Nature’s Best Magazine. 

Read the study:

Conradie W, Keates C, Baptista NL, Lobón-Rovira J (2022) Taxonomical review of Prosymna angolensis Boulenger, 1915 (Elapoidea, Prosymnidae) with the description of two new species. ZooKeys 1121: 97-143. https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.1121.85693

Follow ZooKeys on Facebook and Twitter.