Lovers of escargot, you have company. Newly-discovered company. But they eat a bit differently than you do.
Herpetologists working in South America say they have come across five new species of snakes, and their meal of choice is the snail. These tree snakes have been uncovered by researchers from the American Museum of National History, located in New York, and the discovery was made public today in a paper published in the peer-review journal, Zookeys.
The five snakes, located in Peru and the rainforests of Ecuador, sustain themselves in part by sucking snails out of their hard-shelled habitat by using a modified jaw, which allows them to go where other predators cannot. But despite this unique talent, these snakes may not survive for much longer.
The lead author of the study, Alejandro Arteaga, a comparative biology Ph.D.-degree student, says that "four of the five species we discovered are already facing the possibility of becoming extinct, as the forests remaining for them to survive are almost completely destroyed."
Of the five species of snakes discovered, Dipsas bobridgelyi is considered the most vulnerable to extinction. The other four are known as:
- Sibon bevridgelyi (adjacent photo: credit Matthijs Hollanders)
- Dipsas klebbai
- Dipsas oswaldobaezi
- Dipsas georgejetti
In all, scientists report having identified more than 70 species of snail-eating snakes.
