stephenweir

From http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=79118

Snake that changes colour found

Wednesday Jun 28 07:30 AEST

Scientists claim to have discovered a new species of poisonous snake
with the ability to change colour.

During an expedition to the Indonesian part of Borneo by conservation
group WWF in 2004, researchers stumbled across the snake.

However, WWF expedition coordinator Stuart Chapman said German
researcher Mark Auliya, who discovered the reptile, was only able to
confirm it as a new species this month.

Dr Auliya knew the half-metre long reptile, now named the Kapuas mud
snake, was unusual when it changed from reddish-brown to white within a
matter of minutes.

After capturing the snake, the reptile expert from the Zoologisches
Forschungsmuseum Alexander Koenig in Germany, put it in a dark bucket.

"When I retrieved it a few minutes later, it was almost entirely white,"
Dr Auliya said in a statement released by WWF, formerly known as World
Wildlife Fund.

While some reptiles are known to change colour, such as the chameleon,
the characteristic is rarely seen in snakes.

Scientists are yet to understand how the phenomenon works.

"The snake clearly made a blunder changing to white in the dark bucket,
but that might have been due to the stress of capture - nobody knows,"
Mr Chapman said from Jakarta where he is based.

"It's very poorly understood why it happened but because the snake is
poisonous, it's thought it might use its colours to stalk prey."

Dr Auliya later observed another Kapuas, which also turned white when
placed in the same bucket.

The scientists only observed the process of the colour change when the
snake returned to their reddish-brown state, Mr Chapman said.

"The extremely difficult conditions under which the scientist found
himself prevented him from keeping each snake for very long," said Mr
Chapman, who is British.

The snake belongs to the genus Enhydris, comprising 22 species.

Twenty of these species have very small habitats and scientists believe
the newly discovered snake might only occur in the Kapuas River drainage
system.

In the past 10 years, 361 new animal and plant species have been
discovered on the island of Borneo.


(c)AAP 2006

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stephenweir

-----Original Message-----
From: notify (AT) yahoogroups (DOT) com [mailto:notify (AT) yahoogroups (DOT) com] On Behalf
Of leiopython271
Sent: Thursday, 29 June 2006 6:06 PM
To: Weir, Steve (DET, Newcastle)
Subject: Re: New snake species


Hi folks,

seems that this is around all the snake forums these days :-)

The actual paper is:

Murphy J.C., Voris, H. K. and Auliya, M. 2005. A New Species of
Enhydris (Serpentes: Colubridae: Homalopsinae) from the Kapuas River
System, West Kalimantan, Indonesia. The Raffles Bulletin of Zoology 53
(2): 271-275

and here is the link to the paper:

http://www.fieldmuseum.org/research_...f/murphy_voris
_auliya_2005.pdf


Cheers,