Posted on 03/30/2011 10:33:51 AM PDT by Red Badger
Seen coiled around a branch in an undated picture, a new species of snake called the ruby-eyed green pit viper (Cryptelytrops rubeus) has been discovered in Southeast Asia, according to a recent study. The snake lives in forests near Ho Chi Minh City and across the low hills of southern Vietnam and eastern Cambodia's Langbian Plateau.
Scientists collected green pit vipers from Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, and Cambodia between 1999 and 2003 and examined them in the lab, using physical characteristics and genetics to identify new species.
"We know this species from only a few specimens, and very few people in the world have seen this snake," said study co-author Anita Malhotra, a molecular ecologist at Bangor University in the U.K. "We know very little about what it does, to be honest."
Malhotra and colleagues also discovered a very similar species with striking yellow eyes (not pictured) dubbed the Cardamom Mountains green pit viper (Cryptelytrops cardamomensis), which inhabits southeastern Thailand and southwestern Cambodia. Both new species were described in the January 23 issue of the journal Zootaxa.
We are one species of three races..........
Yeah, I learned that in the 3rd grade along with oil comes from dinosaurs. Doesn’t come close to answering my question. How come it’s a new species of snake instead of a new race of snakes?
Probably took em a while to digest that information.
I don’t know. This is the viper that can strike backwards with the huge fangs.
I certainly want to deal with it.
Thanks for keepiong me in mind and if you see any posts on snakes, please ping me.
Quite crushed. And then crapped out.
We used to put them in a coffee can and roll them around to disorient them. Not sure how much it helped.
Sometimes the snakes wouldn’t eat, in which case we would remove the rat (otherwise the rat will eat the snake). Then we’d end up getting attached to the rat (very smart and likable creatures), so we could not feed that rat to our snake in good conscious. We ended up with quite a few pet rats before the population exploded exponentially. Finally had to donate them to the local pet shop.
We now just have normal pets, dogs and cats.
Here’s what I was told in college biology, kinda basic and oversimplified:
Animals are considered a different species if two specimens that do not normally mate are cross bred and do not produce viable reproductive offspring.
A mule, a cross between a horse and a donkey, is sterile and cannot produce reproductive offspring.
Dogs and wolves can produce reproductive offspring because dogs are essentially wolves of a different race.
Black, white and Asian humans obviously produce reproductive offspring, so we are a single species.......
Legend has it after the bite you’re dead before you hit the ground .... Problem is, you walk around in a daze like coma for weeks in the jungle before that happens.
Already did.
I expect the amount of DNA we share would support this taxonomy. About as good as any. So to summarize, it’s the ability to have babies togeter that makes a species. I’d say your wolves and dogs example means there is some correction to do to the species taxonomy based on this rule though. Even wolves come in diffferent species: the dire wolf (Canis dirus), the gray wolf (Canis lupus) and the coyote (Canis latrans). One additional species, the domestic dog ...etc etc.
1 Stepper?, 2 Stepper?
You are correct on the taxonomy for wolves and dogs being adjusted. DNA tests have shown that the wolf and dog are the same. My Chihuahua thinks she is a wolf and acts accordingly. The domesticated dog in all its different forms have the same ancestry. I suppose that if a certain type of dog became extinct, poodles for instance, they could be recreated over generations starting with a pair of wolves..............
Unknown, but I don’t even want to know.........perhaps we could get some volunteers from death row somewhere to help us in a scientific study..................
Beautiful.
Absolute codswallow - you seem to want to link Asians like the Chinese with Islanders like the Polynesians - despite the Chinese and all other Asians being more related to Europeans than either is to a Polynesian.
And where would you put New Guineans again?
Where would you put me?
I’m half Filipino and half Caucasian?.............
As long as it has a valid BC.
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