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WWF scientists find "chameleon" snake in Borneo forest
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A newfound species of poisonous snake might have developed an unusual way to keep enemies at bay — by spontaneously changing its skin colour.
The slightly iridescent serpent was discovered by scientists in the Indonesian section of the island of Borneo. A WWF team found the snake during a survey of the island's reptile diversity.
"I put the reddish-brown snake in a dark bucket," said Mark Auliya, a German reptile expert and consultant of the international conservation organisation WWF. "When I retrieved it a few minutes later, it was almost entirely white."
Auliya found the 1.6-foot-long (0.5-meter-long) snake in wetlands and swamps near the Kapuas River in Borneo's Betung Kerihun National Park. His team named it the Kapuas mud snake, and the scientists believe it exists only in the river's drainage areas.
"The discovery of the 'chameleon' snake exposes one of nature's best kept secrets deep in the heart of Borneo," WWF's Stuart Chapman said. "Its ability to change colour has kept it hidden from science until now. I guess it just picked the wrong colour that day."
A handful of other reptiles are known to be able to rapidly change their pigmentation, and the trait has been documented as a defence mechanism in some snakes. The researchers don't yet know whether the snake can take on other colours, too, or how and why the new snake species makes the change, but they speculate it could be a warning behaviour.
