New snake species discovery in India

This video says about itself:

The Incredible Indian Snake Girl

Deadly cobra snakes are the best pals of this eight-year-old Indian girl even after being bitten by them a couple of times. Kajol Khan who wants to become a snake catcher like her father eats, sleeps and plays with six cobras all day long. She has even stopped going to school out of her love for the snakes. Kajol said: “I didn’t like the company of humans in the school so stopped going there five years ago.” See how little girl Kajol plays with the deadly cobra snakes, trains the snakes and handles the snakes.

Now, from venomous to non-venomous snakes.

Wallaceophis gujaratenesis. Photo by Zeeshan Mirza

From PLOS ONE:

A New Miocene-Divergent Lineage of Old World Racer Snake from India

March 2, 2016

Abstract

A distinctive early Miocene-divergent lineage of Old world racer snakes is described as a new genus and species based on three specimens collected from the western Indian state of Gujarat. Wallaceophis gen. et. gujaratenesis sp. nov. is a member of a clade of old world racers.

The monotypic genus represents a distinct lineage among old world racers is recovered as a sister taxa to Lytorhynchus based on ~3047bp of combined nuclear (cmos) and mitochondrial molecular data (cytb, ND4, 12s, 16s). The snake is distinct morphologically in having a unique dorsal scale reduction formula not reported from any known colubrid snake genus. Uncorrected pairwise sequence divergence for nuclear gene cmos between Wallaceophis gen. et. gujaratenesis sp. nov. other members of the clade containing old world racers and whip snakes is 21–36%.

From IANS news in India:

Mumbai, March 3: A team of young Indian researchers and naturalists have recently discovered a new snake genus and species in Gujarat, it was announced here on Thursday.

The snake genus has been named Wallaceophis in honour of the legendary 19th century British naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace (1823-1913), considered the father of biogeography, while the snake species has been named gujaratenisis to commemorate the western Indian state where it was discovered.