A Snake That can Change Colour: Kalimantan, Indonesia

I have a fascination for snakes and that stems from one of my very first jobs ever when I worked in a zoo looking after reptiles. Over the decades of travel in Indonesia I have seen my fair share of them, tasted the flesh and even drank the blood.

My continuing fascination with these beautiful creatures will always be there and I must admit I was excited to read that researchers scouring through swamps in the heart of Borneo or Kalimantan Island have discovered a new species of snake that can change its skin colour. Wow!, a snake that acts like a Chameleon. I suppose some smarty professor will classify it as snakus chameleonus!.

According to the article the ability to change skin colour is known in some reptiles such as the chameleon, but scientists have seen it very rarely with snakes and have not yet understood this phenomenon, the WWF said in a statement. Reptiles typically change colour to camouflage themselves from predators

The half-meter long poisonous snake was discovered in wetlands and swamped forests around the Kapuas river in the Betung Kerihun National Park on the Indonesian part of Kalimantan island last year. Scientists named their find the "Kapuas Mud Snake" and speculated it might only occur in the Kapuas river drainage system.

The WWF, the international group formerly known as World Wildlife Fund, said that since 1996 some 361 new animal and plants species have been discovered on the island which Indonesia shares with Malaysia and Brunei underscoring its unparalleled biological diversity. But it said that widespread logging has left Kalimantan with only half of its forest cover, down from 75 percent in the mid 1980s. It did not say whether the Kapuas river region was under immediate threat.