Researchers have discovered five arboreal snake species in the jungles of South America and Leonardo DiCaprio and Brian Sheth of Nature and Culture In
Researchers have discovered five arboreal snake species in the jungles of South America and Leonardo DiCaprio and Brian Sheth of Nature and Culture International three of the species. DiCaprio named the snail-eating snake, Sibon irmelindicaprioae after his mother, Irmelin Indenbirken.
Sibon irmelindicaprioae is a tree-dweller that was first discovered in the Chocó-Darién jungle which runs next to the Pacific Coast of Colombia and up into Panama.
Sibon marleyae, Photo by Alejandro Arteaga
Brian Sheth named a snake after his daughter, Marley. That snake, Sibon marleyae, is also a snail-eating snake. It is red and green in coloration, which some say resembles the coloration of Christmas.
Sheth named a second snake, Welborn’s snail-eating snake (Dipsas welborni) after David Welborn, who once served on the board of Nature and Culture International, an organization headed up by Sheth. The other two snake species are the canopy snail-eating snake (Sibon canopy) and Vieira’s snail-eating snake (Sibon vieirai).
The five new species of arboreal, snail-eating snake were described by Ecuadorian biologist Alejandro Arteaga and Panamanian biologist Abel Batista in the journal Zookeys.
These snakes can only survive in the jungle forest canopies, which are under threat by illegal gold and copper mining. The region is said to hold some of the world’s largest deposits of these metals. And the illegal mining of these metals apparently exploded during the Covid19 pandemic.
The complete paper describing the species, “A consolidated phylogeny of snail-eating snakes (Serpentes, Dipsadini), with the description of five new species from Colombia, Ecuador, and Panama” can be read on the Zookey’s website. https://zookeys.pensoft.net/article/93601/
