4-foot-long creature with ‘very long’ snout found dead in India. It’s a new species

Walking along the outskirts of a village in northeastern India, a pair of scientists found a 4-foot-long creature lying there dead. Its oddly shaped snout caught their attention.

It turned out to be a new species.

Sourabh Verma and Soham Pattekar visited a village in Bihar on the edge of a nature reserve in 2021, according to a study published in September in the peer-reviewed Journal of Asia-Pacific Biodiversity. The area’s biodiversity, especially its amphibians and reptiles, were under-surveyed and poorly documented.

During the visit, the pair found the dead snake, the study said. They couldn’t tell how the snake had died, but something about it intrigued them. It didn’t look like any known species.

Researchers tested the snake’s DNA and identified some matches: a pair of snakes from almost 700 miles away. Follow-up surveys and in-depth analysis confirmed their suspicions.

They’d discovered a new species: Ahaetulla longirostris, or the long-snouted vine snake.

Long-snouted vine snakes are considered “medium sized,” reaching up to 4 feet in length, the study said. They have “triangular” heads tapering into “very long” snouts, taking up roughly 18% of their head length.

A close-up photo shows the new species’ oddly proportioned head. Researchers said they named the new species after the Latin words “longus,” or “long,” and “rostrum,” or “snout,” because of this key feature.

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Long-snouted vine snakes typically have orange bellies, but their backs vary in color. Some are “bright green” while others are orange-brown, photos show.

The new species lives in forests as well as “human-dominated” areas, such as cities and villages, researchers said.

So far, long-snouted vine snakes have been found in Bihar and Meghalaya, two states of northeastern India near the borders with Bangladesh, Bhutan and Nepal, the study said. Researchers suspect the new species is more widespread.

The new species was identified by its snout, scale pattern, texture, coloring and DNA, the study said.

The research team included Zeeshan Mirza, Soham Pattekar, Sourabh Verma, Bryan Stuart, Jayaditya Purkayastha, Pratyush Mohapatra and Harshil Patel.

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