A species of snake considered to be lost was seen for the first time in almost 80 years in a remote island of the Mexican Pacific, revealed the media on Tuesday.
The discovery, part of a study published on scientific magazine PLOS One, was carried out by scientists who observed the Clarión nightsnake in one of the Revillagigedo Isles, a little over 650 km from the Mexican mainland, reported the Miami Herald.
The first and only observation of this snake species was registered in 1936 by American naturalist William Beebe during a visit to Clarión, one of the four Revillagigedo Isles.
In that occasion, the American scientist took a snake specimen and placed it in a crystal recipient; however, in later visits researchers and naturalists were not able to find another specimen like the first one, dark brown and with spots in its body that allowed it to camouflage in the rocky terrain of Clarión Island.
Almost three decades after, without any new sightings, the snake was removed from scientific registries.
Despite this background, Dan Mulcahy, researcher of the Smithsonian Institute's National Museum of Natural History, decided to return to the Revillagigedo Isles and along with Juan Martínez Gómez of Mexico's Institute of Ecology, organized a new expedition which concluded with the amazing rediscovery of 11 snakes which match Beebe's description, reported the BBC.
The discovery is of great importance to scientists, since this is the first species which has been struck from scientific records owing to a localization error.
"The rediscovery of the Clarión nightsnake is an incredible story of how scientists are based on historical data and museum collections to solve today's mysteries of the biodiversity of the world in which we live," commented Mulcahy in a press release quoted by the BBC.
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