Kapuas Mud Snake (Enhydris gyii) or the Chameleon snake is a native of the Borneo Island, found inside the macro habitat of the Kapuas River. The Snake can change its epidermal color spontaneously. Discovered in 2005 accidently, when the specimen was put in a dark bucket, the snake turned into pale white 20 mins later. A new species to the Enhydris genus.. Like all Homalospinae, this 30 inch snake is mildly venomous (Rear fanged snake) and Viviparous.
To be much plain ... Kapuas Mud Snake (Enhydris gyii) is a rear fanged water snake.
Extract from Nat Geo News
June 27, 2006--A newfound species of poisonous snake might have developed an unusual way to keep enemies at bay—by spontaneously changing its skin color.
The slightly iridescent serpent, was discovered in the Indonesian section of the island of Borneo, the international conservation organization WWF announced today. A WWF team found the snake during a 2003 survey of the island's reptile diversity.
"I put the reddish-brown snake in a dark bucket," Mark Auliya, a German reptile expert and WWF consultant, said in a press release. "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 in a press release. "Its ability to change color has kept it hidden from science until now. I guess it just picked the wrong color that day."
A handful of other reptiles are known to be able to rapidly change their pigmentation (photo:chameleon color change), and the trait has been documented as a defense mechanism in some snakes. The researchers don't yet know how or why the new snake species makes the change, but they speculate it could be a warning behavior.
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Description: Snout sharp and prominently upturned; internasals separated from one another. Head wide and triangular, Upper head scales unequal and partially imbricate. Eye with vertical pupil. Scales in 19-21 rows. Ventral 146, candals 52, paired. Body stout. Tail short and tapering. Climate Condition during embryonic development can exert profound and long-term effects on many types of Organisms, but most previous research on this topic has focussed on endothermic vertebrates. Although viviparity in ectothermic taxa allows the reproducing female to buffer ambient thermal variation for her development offspring, even an actively thermoregulating female maybe unable to provide optimal incubation regimes in severe weather conditions. Examination to the extend to which fluctuations in natural thermal conditions during pregnancy affect reproduction in a temperate viviparous snake, the Asp Viper (Vipera aspis). Data gathered from a long term field study demonstrated that ambient thermal conditions influenced (1) Female Body temperatures (2) Gestation length, embryo viability and offspring phenotypes. Interestingly, thermal conditions during each of the three months of the gestation affected different aspects of reproduction. Hotter weather early Gestation (June), Increased ventral scale count (=no: of Body Segments) of neonates; hotter weather mid-gestation (July) hastened development and thus the date of parturition, and hotter weather late in gestation(August) reduced the incidence of still born neonates. The population studied is close to the northern limit of the species range, and embryonic thermal requirements may prevent Vipera aspis from extending into cooler conditions further north. Reptiles are organisms that belong to the class Reptilia. They belong to the Kingdom Animalia, Phylum Chordata, and Subphylum Vertibrata. Many subclasses are found under Class Reptilia. Reptiles are Cold-Blooded organisms. That is, the external temperature will be almost the same as their body temperature. Temperature plays a vital role in the life of these Reptiles. Thermoregulation is the process by which an organism regulates its body temperature. This term is usually reserved for animals, such as Reptiles, that maintain their body temperatures through external means. The Movement of the Reptiles is decided over by the External Temperature. If it’s too cold, The Animal basks itself under the sun to charge itself up for its routine. If it’s too hot, the animal cools itself down under a shade. Temperature determines the Gender/Sex of a Reptile. Research has proved that, temperature plays a major or vital role in determining the gender of a reptile. A reptile egg incubated on a specific range of temperature has resulted in producing a hatching of a specific gender, and a variation in the temperature resulted in producing another gender. The offspring sex in many reptiles is irreversibly determined by temperatures experienced (during the middle third of embryonic development). The sex ratio of offspring in these taxa may be radically altered by as little as a 1C shift in incubation temperature.
FREDRIC J. JANZEN (Department of Ecology and Evolution, University of Chicago) monitored nests of a population of painted turtles (Chrysemys pica) with temperature-dependent sex determination to investigate the causal relationship between local climatic variation in temperature and offspring sex ratio. When monitored in the mild July temperatures, he came to realize that; even modest increases in mean temperature (<2C) may drastically skew the sex ratio. Statistical evaluation of the variance in climate change indicates that an increase in mean temperature of 4C would effectively eliminate production of male offspring Wildlife represents a significant and valued natural resource in India. Living wild species are like a library of books unread. Unfortunately, due to our heedless destruction of them is akin to burning the library without ever having read its books. |