Snake Roadkill Is New Species of High-Altitude Viper
A squashed snake on a road in Kyrgyzstan is a venomous pit viper unknown to science—and there are likely more to be found, experts say.
A piece of roadkill peeled off a mountain road in southern Kyrgyzstan has led to the discovery of a new species of viper.
Though the dead snake was too mangled to draw any firm conclusions, herpetologist Philipp Wagner admits, it wasn’t long before another showed up in much better shape.
“The first one we found was roadkill and it was really, really flat, so we weren’t able to identify it, but the second specimen, that was alive,” says Wagner, of the Bavarian State Collection of Zoology in Munich. (See "New Pit Viper Found—One of World's Smallest.")
Wagner was part of a National Geographic Science and Exploration in Europe expedition that found the new pit viper, dubbed Gloydius rickmersi, during a 2013 wildlife survey in the remote Alai mountain range (map).
The discovery was unexpected, since reptiles generally have a hard time scraping out a living in the harsh mountain
