Scientists uncover critically endangered snake species in Bahamas

While the Bahamas are a heavily traveled and well-researched part of our planet, that doesn’t mean there aren’t amazing new discoveries to be made there.

Biologists have announced the discovery of a striking new species of snake, a silver-hued snake they called Conception Bank silver boa (Chilabothrus argentum).

According to a new report from National Geographic, the researchers stumbled upon the new species by accident, when walking through forests in a remote part of the southern Bahamas. Biologist R. Graham Reynolds told Nat Geo that he spotted the metallic-looking snake as it climbed a tree

“We all came to take a look at it, and it was instantly clear that this was something different,” said Reynolds, a biologist at the University of North Carolina, Asheville.

Finding a new species

After the team scoured the island and found four more specimens of the same species, the settled done for the night, but it turned out their search wasn’t done.

“Sometime around 3:30 in the morning, I woke up to something crawling across my face,” Reynolds said. It turned out to be the team’s sixth specimen.

The team confirmed that they had indeed found a new species through DNA analysis. The silver boa looks different from the three other boa species living in the Bahamas, and it also lives in trees, unlike the other snakes.

The researchers said there are probably less than a thousand of these snakes on Earth and this small population means they are highly vulnerable. The team that discovered the new species called for the International Union for Conservation of Nature to declare them as Critically Endangered.

“This new species occurs on a group of islands that have never been connected to any of the other islands in the Bahamas,” Reynolds said. “As far as we know, they only occur on Conception Island Bank and nowhere else.”

The good news for the silver boa is that all islands around Conception Island Bank are national parkland, and tourists to the location are fairly uncommon. The reptile does encounter threats like natural disasters, the illegal pet trade and feral cats, which live on Conception Island and are seen preying boas in other places around the Bahamas.

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Image credit: National Geographic

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