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posted by Fnord666 on Sunday November 26 2017, @06:05PM   Printer-friendly
from the angry-rope dept.

An international team made up of scientists from Brazil, Australia, USA, Ecuador, Germany and Sweden has published the results of an extensive database constructed for snakes of the American tropics. This database is made up of museum collections from the past 150 years and demonstrates that some Neotropical regions, such as the Cerrado in the central Brazil, contain a disproportionately high diversity. Furthermore, some other diverse regions are disproportionally under sampled, such as the Amazon. For the first time all factors, such as distribution patterns, collection records and frequency of occurrence are recorded from a total of 147,515 contributions to 886 snake species. Thus, the database covers 74 per cent of all snake species from 27 countries. The database, which has been so far unique in this form, will serve as a solid basis for conservation concepts, to biodiversity and evolution models in the future, as well as to design research agendas. The study was recently published in the journal "Global Ecology and Biogeography."

About 10,500 species of reptiles (animals such as lizards and snakes) are found around the world and about 150 to 200 new species are also discovered every year. Snakes make up about 34 percent of this group of animals. "We assume that there are still many snake species that we still do not know. However, the identification of areas poorly-sampled, where probably new species can be found, must come from data and mapping of the known species" explains leading author Dr. Thaís Guedes from the University of Gothenburg and adds: "We realize that the very rich Amazonian area is, for example, one of the least explored areas -

Most of the area is of high inaccessibility, the low investments in local research sum to relative shortage of experts to explore this huge area explain this result. Besides that, the centers of research, as scientific collections, are limited to the geographic area of major cities and universities."

Thaís B. Guedes, Et. Al. Patterns, biases and prospects in the distribution and diversity of Neotropical snakes. Global Ecology and Biogeography, 2017; DOI: 10.1111/geb.12679


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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Sunday November 26 2017, @08:04PM (2 children)

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Sunday November 26 2017, @08:04PM (#601808) Journal

    I read the title. Decided to skip the article (while it was still in the queue). It finally hit the front page, and I had a few smartass comments to make. But - I actually clicked the link, and read the article. Despite the fact that I don't have much use for snakes, it is informative. Interesting, even.

    Snakes aside, my takeaway is, they have quantified how much we know about nature, and indirectly, put an educated guess quantity about how much we DON'T know.

    Snakes. Wonder if we've even discovered the most deadly snake on the planet yet? Cobras, bushmasters, asps - maybe there's a really badass snake out there, who takes the Bushmater's talent for stalking humans to the next level. We kill one of them, they kill 1000 of us? Let's hope not . . . (alright, the stalking business? I've only heard stories about that - unverified stories. If anyone knows of any verified accounts of bushmasters hunting and stalking humans, I'd like to know of them!)

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  • (Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Sunday November 26 2017, @08:48PM

    by PartTimeZombie (4827) on Sunday November 26 2017, @08:48PM (#601819)

    Here's a list [listverse.com] of the 10 most venomous snakes, 6 of them are native to Australia although as far as I'm aware, not many people die from snakebite there, as antivenom is available commonly.

    If fact the First Aid person at my companies' Melbourne office has anti-venom for several snake and spider bites.

    I was told at a wildlife park in Australia that the Eastern Brown is actually pretty chill, and will only bite a dog if the dog has a crack at the snake. Otherwise people should leave them alone, as they clear up the rats quite well.

    Wikipedia says, however [wikipedia.org] that the Eastern Brown is aggressive as hell, so best to keep clear.

    I suppose the moral of the story is: Don't go to Australia, everything will try to kill you.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 26 2017, @09:05PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 26 2017, @09:05PM (#601830)

    The most dangerous and venomous snake is the jew. It becomes your acquaintance, and then it stalks you, poisons you and drinks out your blood.