A team of Mumbai-based Mirza and Rajesh Sanap, well-known Gujarat-based herpetologist Raju Vyas, Harshil Patel, a researcher, and reptile enthusiast Jaydeep Maheta, that discovered the snake, found out that their research had led them to not only finding about a new species, but also a new genus (a complete new group of snake).
Curiosity over the picture of a snake seen in 2007 not only stayed with herpetologist and Andheri resident Zeeshan A Mirza, but also ended up helping him and his team discover a new snake Wallaceophis gujaratensis from Gujarat nine years later.
A team of Mumbai-based Mirza and Rajesh Sanap, well-known Gujarat-based herpetologist Raju Vyas, Harshil Patel, a researcher, and reptile enthusiast Jaydeep Maheta, that discovered the snake, found out that their research had led them to not only finding about a new species, but also a new genus (a complete new group of snake).
They have named the genus of the reptile after Alfred Russel Wallace, who had jointly published the theory of evolution by natural selection with Charles Darwin in 1858. The species, on the other hand, has been named gujaratensis for the state in which the snake was discovered.
The finding about this snake, having the common name Wallace's Striped Snake, was published on Thursday in the current issue of the international peer-reviewed journal Plos One.
"I had first seen the image of this snake in a paper published by Raju Vyas in 2007, when I was an undergraduate student and used to rescue snakes. I found it odd-looking and phoned him to seek his opinion on its identity, but even he told me there was something odd about it, however, all he had was an image and not seen the actual reptile," said Mirza of the National Centre for Biological Sciences, Bengaluru, who has till date described about 28 new species which include lizards, scorpions, and tarantulas.
In 2014, Patel informed Mirza that the snake of the image had been found by a fellow rescuer, Maheta.
"We could begin the identification process and soon, Sanap, a research associate with the NCBS, aided with the lab work, Harshil compared specimens from the collection of the Bombay Natural History Society and I began comparing the snake from Gujarat with available literature," said Mirza.
Based on scalation, tooth number, bone morphology and DNA, the reptile was identified to belong to a group of colubrid snakes that include racers, royal snakes and whip snakes but did differ considerably, thus showing clearly that it not only belonged to a new species but also an entirely new genus.
"While we began work in July 2014 and wrote a joint scientific paper and submitted it in July 2015, it was finally accepted this January and published on March 3. It's a big achievements for our team that we have been able to discover a new genus itself," said Sanap.
"A new lizard species was discovered from Gujarat in 2009 and now a snake. This highlights the need for dedicated surveys to document the state's biota as well as other poorly documented regions of India," said Patel.
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