New Species of Blunt-Headed Vine Snake Discovered in Ecuador's Chocoan Forests
Posted on November 27, 2012
A new species of blunt-headed vine snake has been discovered in the Chocoan forests in northwestern Ecuador. The snake, Imantodes chocoensis, has a head the size of an American penny. The snake was found by zoologists from Omar Torres-Carvajal from Museo de Zoologia QCAZ and Pontificia Universidad Catolica del Ecuador.
Blunt-headed snakes are different from other snakes in that they have a very thin body and slender neck. They also have unusually large eyes and a blunt head. The snakes live in trees and come out to hunt frogs and lizards at night. Here are some images of the head of Imantodes chocoensis.
Dr. Torres-Carvajal, the leader of the research group, said in a statement, "One possible explanation for the disjunct distribution between the new species and its closest relative is that the uplift of the Andes fragmented an ancestral population into two, each of which evolved into a different species, one in the Choca region and the other in the Amazon."
The research was published here in the journal, ZooKeys.