Never-before-seen creature with 'blade-shaped fangs' is discovered in a ... trends now
Two reptile hunters have discovered a new species of snake with 'blade-like' fangs in Thailand.
This slithering animal, they report, also has strongly ridged scales on its underbelly that allow it to 'climb vertical rock faces.'
'It is especially adapted to life in this harsh environment,' said one of the reptile hunters, who named their find the 'Cave Kukri Snake' or, Oligodon speleoserpens, after its unforgiving home in Thailand's limestone karst mountain caves.
Evolutionary biologists who assisted these reptile hunters in categorizing their new snake said the creature's two 'enlarged blade-shaped maxillary teeth' and its mountaineering ridges offered 'strong evidence' indicative of a brand new species.
While only three specimens of the new snake were captured for study, those samples were enough to positively ID it as a new species, thanks to its 'climbing grip' underbelly. Top right (d), the inflated 'hemipenes' or reproductive organs of the male Cave Kukri Snake specimen
The new snake had been spotted climbing up a nearly 50-foot cliff face, the researcher said. 'This was incredibly risky but I had no option but to "free solo" (climbing talk for no ropes),' said Bangor University-trained herpetologist Harry Ward-Smith, who caught the creature
The reptile hunters had to climb five stories high to obtain samples of the new species.
Harry Ward-Smith, a young reptile expert who has worked for Thailand's Sakaerat Conservation and Snake Education Team, reported that one example or 'paratype' of the new Cave Kukri Snake had been caught climbing up a nearly 50-foot cliff face.
'This was incredibly risky but I had no option but to "free solo" (climbing talk for no ropes),' Ward-Smith shared on an April 26th Facebook notice.
'I knew the importance of this snake,' the Bangor University-trained herpetologist, or reptile zoologist said, 'and was not going to let it escape us under any circumstance.'
Ward-Smith's partner on this dangerous mission through the mountainous Trang and Satun provinces in Southern Thailand, Rupert Grassby-Lewis of the wildlife tourism group Explore Herpetology, described the
