The discovery of a new type of snake due to an image on social media

A scientific team from India has discovered, by checking a photo shared on “Instagram”, a new type of snake belonging to the “kukri” family, previously unknown to scientists.
Masters student at Guru Nanak Dev University in India, Virinder Bhardwaj, took advantage of the quarantine period and started taking pictures of the animals in his backyard.
The student shared a wide range of photos of everything he saw in this small garden on his Instagram page, including pictures of snakes, lizards, frogs, and others.
But one of those photos caught the attention of scientist, Zeeshan Mirza, of the National Center for Biological Sciences in India, who immediately decided to contact the young man who took the photo, for more information about the snake.

According to the article published in the scientific journal “phys”, it was discovered that the snake belongs to a previously unseen family of “Kukri” snakes, but with very unique features that raised many questions.
Although the young man shared the photo on “Instagram” on June 5, 2020, the researchers conducted an extensive survey a month later in the area where he photographed the first snake, and found two, which enabled them to continue the research, but the laboratories were closed due to the Corona pandemic. prevented from continuing.

After the labs reopened, the team studied the samples’ DNA and discovered they belonged to a different species than the kukri. The team confirmed, after lengthy computer studies and comparisons with other species, that these snakes belong to a species that was not previously known to scientists.

This discovery was published in a research paper in the scientific journal “evolsyst”, and the new snake was given the name (Oligodon churahensis), which means the place where it was discovered, which is the Chara Valley in the Indian region of Himachal Pradesh.

“Interesting is to see how a photo on Instagram led to the discovery of such a beautiful snake that, until very recently, remained hidden from the world. What is even more interesting is that exploring your own backyard may yield a species that remains undocumented. It was People are eager to travel to remote biodiversity areas to find new or rare species, but if one looks in their own backyard, they might find a new species there too.”

“Compared to other biodiversity hotspots, the western Himalayas are still under-explored, especially in terms of reptile species, harboring very unique species of reptiles that we have only started to discover in the last couple of years,” Mirza adds.