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Archives of The Cold Blooded NewsThe Newsletter of the Colorado Herpetological SocietyVolume 30, Number 11; November, 2003 |
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Ridge-Tail Monitor Long-nosed Leopard Lizard New snake species Frilled Dragon Box Turtle Housing Earliest Salamanders Discovered Better Than Duct Tape Self Cloning Python The Purple Frog PREVIOUS ISSUES October 2003 September 2003 July 2003 June 2003 2002 Index Earlier Issues About the Cold Blooded News CHS Home Page |
Welsh scientist finds new snake speciesReprinted from the newsletter of the Toledo Herpetological Society, Vol.14, No.7, July 2003.A new species of spitting cobra has been discovered by a Welsh scientist. Keepers from London Zoo's reptile house and Dr Wolfgang Waster of the School of Biological Sciences, University of Wales, have found the previously unknown snake, the Zoological Society of London said. The snakes, brought to London Zoo as part of a Customs seizure from Egypt, were originally thought to be the spitting cobra Naja pallida, but have subsequently proved to be a closely related but new species, and have been named Naja nubiae, the Nubian cobra, a spokeswoman said. Keepers noticed a difference in scale pattern and colouring and the new species was confirmed by Dr Waster's DNA studies, she said. The new species is differentiated from the red spitting cobra (Naja pallida), by its throat and neck pattern and overall body colour. Naja pallida normally has a single, broad dark band across the throat, which encircles the body and crosses the neck. The rest of the body is uniformly dark red. The new species has two bands across the neck, a distinct light throat area before the main throat band, and practically all specimens feature a small dark spot on each side of the throat. The rest of the body is dark brown. The cobras recently produced a clutch of ten eggs, all of which hatched successfully on June 5. The snake occupies a range across Egypt, the Sudan, Chad, Niger, and Eritrea, and is named after the region known as Nubia, the home of the first black African civilisation, which occupied the Nile Valley between Aswan and Khartoum in present-day southern Egypt and northern Sudan. Copyright © 1998 - 2006, Colorado Herpetological Society. All rights reserved. | ||
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