A team of scientists led by a University of Queensland biologist has discovered a new species of bandy-bandy snake on the west coast of the Cape York Peninsula in Australia.
Vermicella parscauda. Image credit: Freek Vonk.
Bandy-bandies are members of the genus Vermicella, part of the cobra family Elapidae (elapids).
These snakes are small (20-40 inches, or 50-100 cm long) black and white burrowing elapids with a highly specialized diet of blindsnakes. They are venomous but inoffensive.
There are currently seven recognized species in the Vermicella genus, all located in Australia, with the hoop snake (Vermicella annulata) the most encountered species with the largest distribution.
The newly-discovered bandy-bandy species, named Vermicella parscauda, occurs in the Weipa area, Cape York, Queensland.
“The chance discovery occurred when we were undertaking sea snake research,” said team leader Dr. Bryan Fry, from the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Queensland.
“Bandy-bandies are burrowing snakes, so we were surprised when we found it on a concrete block by the sea, after coming in from a night of sea snake spotting.”
“We later discovered that the snake had slithered over from a pile of bauxite rubble waiting to be loaded onto a ship.”
Dr. Fry and colleagues said they feared Vermicella parscauda could be in trouble.
“Bauxite mining is a major economic activity in the region, and it may be reshaping the environment to the detriment of native plants and animals,” Dr. Fry said.
“The importance of such discoveries goes beyond simply documenting what is out there, as venoms are rich sources of compounds that can be used to develop new medications.”
“Every species is precious and we need to protect them all, since we can’t predict where the next wonder-drug will come from.”
“The discovery of this enigmatic little snake is symptomatic of the much more fundamental problem of how little we know about our biodiversity and how much may be lost before we even discover it.”
A paper reporting this discovery is published in the journal Zootaxa.
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Chantelle M. Derez et al. 2018. A new species of bandy-bandy (Vermicella: Serpentes: Elapidae) from the Weipa region, Cape York, Australia. Zootaxa 4446 (1); doi: 10.11646/zootaxa.4446.1.1
