Dharamshala, 13th October: Snakes are supposed to be unable to dwell on the Tibetan plateau because the altitude is too high and the temperature is too low for them to survive. However, researchers discovered two new species of the viper on the Tibetan Plateau, putting that theory to rest.
The Nujiang pit viper from Zayu, Tibet, and the Glacier pit viper from west of the Nujiang River and Heishui, Sichuan, east of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, have both recently been added to Asia’s fauna. The discovery was made as part of a new molecular phylogenetic analysis of Asian pit vipers published in the peer-reviewed, open-access journal ZooKeys by researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology and Bangor University.
The Nujiang pit viper has a greyish brown back with irregular black ring-shaped crossbands, wide grayish-brown stripes behind the eyes, and comparatively small fangs, whereas the Glacier pit viper has a blueish-gray back with zigzag stripes and narrow stripes behind the eyes.
The Glacial pit viper is found in the Dagu Holy-glacier National Park, where the glacier lake is 2000 meters higher than the snakes’ habitat, at over 4,880 meters above sea level. This finding shows that glaciers may have played a role in alpine pit viper isolation and diversification in southwest China.
The researchers were astounded by the sights they saw during their fieldwork, in addition to their discoveries. They saw “holy, crystal-like” glacial lakes surrounded by mountains, as well as colorful broadleaf-conifer woods and morning mists falling over the settlement, on their expeditions.