New endangered snake species discovered in Paraguay

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – A new and colorful non-venomous snake species, previously unknown to science, was discovered in Paraguay and presented in a study published in the Zoosystematics and Evolution journal.

It belongs to the genus Phalotris, which has 15 semi-subterranean species distributed in central South America. This group of snakes stands out for their striking coloration with red, black, and yellow patterns.

The finding was made by the Paraguayan NGO Para La Tierra in collaboration with Guyra Paraguay and the Instituto de Investigación Biológica del Paraguay.

Jean-Paul Brouard, one of the researchers involved, came across an individual of the new species while digging a hole at Rancho Laguna Blanca in 2014.

Together with colleagues Paul Smith and Pier Cacciali, they named it Phalotris shawnella, after two children, Shawn Ariel Smith Fernandez and Ella Bethany Atkinson, born the same year as the Para La Tierra Foundation (2008).

They inspired the founders of the NGO to work for the conservation of Paraguayan wildlife in the hope that their children can inherit a better world.

The new snake Phalotris is particularly attractive and can be distinguished from other related species in its genus by its red head combined with a yellow collar, a black lateral band, and orange ventral scales with irregular black spots.

Known only from three specimens, it is endemic to the Cerrado forests of the department of San Pedro in eastern Paraguay. Its known distribution consists of two sites with sandy soils in that department, Colonia Volendam and Laguna Blanca, separated by 90 km.

The extreme rarity of this species led the authors to consider it “endangered”, according to the conservation categories of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), which means that it is in imminent danger of extinction in the absence of conservation measures.

With information from Europa Press