2-foot-long creature found lurking in dark forest in Myanmar. It’s a new species
In a remote forest of northern Myanmar, a 2-foot-long creature moved along the ground. Something about it caught the attention of visiting scientists — and for good reason.
It turned out to be a new species.
A team of researchers spent several years visiting sites throughout the Himalayas to survey reptiles. The project focused on a group of snakes, known as wolf snakes, with an “underestimated” amount of diversity, according to a study published April 14 in the peer-reviewed journal Zootaxa.
While visiting Tibet and Myanmar between 2015 and 2019, researchers encountered several vaguely familiar-looking snakes, the study said. Initially, researchers identified the animals as a known and widespread species, but after testing its DNA and looking closer, they realized they’d discovered a new species: Lycodon latifasciatus, or the East Himalayan banded wolf snake.
East Himalayan banded wolf snakes are considered “medium-sized,” reaching about 2 feet, 10 inches in length, the study said. They have “elongate” snouts and “vertical” pupils.
Photos show the new species and its alternating brown and orange stripes. Researchers said they named the new species after the Latin words for “broad” and “band” because of its “distinct” coloring.
East Himalayan banded wolf snakes are nocturnal ground-dwellers often found in tropical and “evergreen forests,” the study said. In Tibet, researchers often found the snakes “on the side of roads during light rain at night.”
In Myanmar, the snakes were found “along the streams and hill slopes,” study co-author Nikolay Poyarkov wrote in an April 14 Facebook post.
The new species “appears quite uncommon across its native range, but whether that is due to a lack of survey effort, low (population) densities or low detectability is uncertain,” researchers said.
So far, East Himalayan banded wolf snakes have only been found in three sites of northern Myanmar and Tibet, an autonomous region controlled by China, the study said. These sites are roughly 200 miles apart, suggesting the new species may be more widespread.
“The paucity of records between each locality probably (reflects) a lack of fieldwork,” researchers said, “since most of northern Myanmar, northeast India and southwestern China remain underexplored.”
The new species was identified by its coloring, scale pattern, genitalia and other subtle physical features, the study said. DNA analysis found the new species had at least 8% genetic divergence from other related snake species.
The research team included Tan Van Nguyen, Justin Lee, Ke Jiang, Li Ding, May Thu Chit, Nikolay Poyarkov and Gernot Vogel.
This story was originally published April 17, 2025 at 2:53 PM with the headline "2-foot-long creature found lurking in dark forest in Myanmar. It’s a new species."
