A brand new species of snake has been discovered lurking in cloud forests of Ecuador.
The new species is a type of coffee snake, and has been named the Tudor's Coffee Snake, or Ninia guytudori, in honor of naturalist and and scientific illustrator Guy Tudor, according to a new paper in the journal Evolutionary Systematics.
The new species has been identified after years of being confused with members of other species, such as N. atrata and N. teresitae.
"Specimens of Ninia guytudori sp. nov. have been found active at night on leaf-litter in old-growth cloud forest. During the daytime, they have been found hidden under rotten logs. When threatened, individuals flatten the body and tail," the study said.
It was discovered slithering around cloud forests in Ecuador, which are moist, mossy, evergreen forests found at elevations between 1,600 and 13,000 feet above sea level. Only around one percent of global forest is cloud forest, most of which is found in Central and South America, East and Central Africa, Southeast Asia and islands in the Pacific.
"We discovered a new species of coffee snake and, in the process, revalidated another species. One is endemic to the cloud forests of NW Ecuador, and the other to the seasonally dry forests of SW Ecuador," said Alejandro Arteaga, a biologist who discovered the species when looking for animals to include in a book about the reptiles of Ecuador.
Around 2.4 percent of cloud forest area worldwide was lost between 2001 and 2018, mostly due to deforestation by logging and mining practices.
This loss of habitat means that many species of coffee snake native to cloud forests are often found in coffee plantations, hence their name. The Tudor's Coffee Snake in particular is found along the Pacific slopes of the Andes in northwest Ecuador, at elevations between 3,200 and 4,900 feet above sea level.
"The species is named after Guy Tudor, an all-around naturalist and scientific illustrator with a deep fondness for birds and all animals, in recognition of the impact he has had on the conservation of South America's birds through his artistry," Arteaga said. "For many years, Tudor and Bob Ridgely partnered in the preparation of numerous well-regarded volumes on the Neotropical avifauna."
The deforestation of the cloud forests may threaten the future of the newly discovered species.
"We consider Ninia guytudori sp. nov. to be included in the Near Threatened conservation category following the IUCN criteria, because the species has been recorded in more than 10 localities and it is distributed over an area which retains the majority [around 53 percent] of its forest cover," the authors said.
"Therefore, the species is facing no major immediate extinction threats. However, some populations are likely to be declining due to deforestation by logging and large-scale mining, especially in the province Imbabura, where only two populations of the species are known."
The authors of the paper hope that the discovery of the species proves the importance of preserving the cloud forest ecosystem, and will also help preserve coffee plantations nearby that help to support the species and others like it.
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Update 1/29/24, 11:18 a.m. ET: This article was updated with comment from Alejandro Arteaga.
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