Two New Shield Tail Snakes Recorded In Sri Lanka
A group of researchers, including one of the leading herpetologists in Sri Lanka, Mendis Wickramasinghe and Herpetology Researcher at Natural History Museum, London, Evolutionary Biologist Dr. David Gower, has been able to discover two species of snakes endemic to Sri Lanka in Riverston and Rassagala, Balangoda in the Knuckles mountain range.Researches say that with these two discoveries, the number of endemic snakes in Sri Lanka increases to 108 and the number of shieldtail snakes increases to 18. This new species of snakes discovered in Riverston area of Knuckles mountain range situated at an elevation of 1400 metres above the sea level, show similarity to Phillip’s Earth Snake in its outward appearance. This new species has been named Gunasekara’s Shieldtail. The snake has been named in honor of the former Director General of Customs as well as an environmentalist, Samantha Gunasekara who established a Biodiversity Culture and National Heritage Protection branch for the first time in Sri Lanka Customs,
Source: Daily Mirror