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A new species of snake capable of rapidly changing colour has been discovered deep in the forests of Borneo. Two specimens of the Kapuas mud snake (Enhydris gyii) were discovered in the swampy forests of Indonesia's Betung Kerihun National Park, WWF reported on Monday.
The half-metre-long venomous snake is normally brown with an iridescent sheen, but can turn white. It is not yet known whether the snake can become other colours too, or what exactly causes the change.
The chameleon is the best known colour-changing reptile, but many other lizards, a handful of snakes and turtles can pull the stunt too. A semi-permanent colour change that happens over days or weeks is more common in snakes – for example during the mating season. However, rare and sporadic examples of "physiological" colour change, caused by rapid changes in pigmented skin cells, have been recorded too.
"I put the reddish-brown snake in a dark bucket. When I retrieved it a few minutes later, it was almost entirely white," says Mark Auliya of the Alexander Koenig Museum in Bonn, Germany, and WWF consultant. Auliya was part of a team that discovered the snake while conducting a survey of reptile diversity in the park in 2003.
The chameleon-like snake is "quite astonishing", comments Stefan Ziegler of WWF Germany in Frankfurt. This is the first new snake to be discovered in around five years, he says.
It is possible that the behaviour is a "warning or a defence mechanism", says Ziegler. Rapid colour change has been recorded as a defensive behaviour in several other snakes. In some cases the colour change is achieved by the snake elevating its scales.
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'Chameleon' snake can turn white in minutes
'Chameleon' snake can turn white in minutes -
06-28-2006, 11:09 AM
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