‘Exceedingly rare’ creature — 3 feet long and scaly — found on tree in Tibet. See it

Aspen Pflughoeft
·1 min read

Blanketed by darkness, a scientist stood near a road in Tibet and shined a flashlight across the nearby tree trunks. Something on the tree — a 3-foot-long, scaly creature — caught their attention.

It turned out to be an “exceedingly rare” animal.

Xiaoqi Mi found the 3-foot-long snake on a “big tree trunk” in Mêdog County last August, according to a study published May 7 in the peer-reviewed journal ZooKeys. The reptile had a “conspicuous yellow collar on (its) neck” and alternating black and yellowish-green stripes.

Researchers identified the snake as Lycodon gammiei, “a rarely encountered species of Asian snake,” the study said.

A photo shows the long, thin snake stretched out on some moss. Its coloring appears to blend in well with its surroundings.

The Lycodon gammiei, or Gammie’s wolf snake, found on a tree in Tibet. Photos from XQ Mi via Shu, Lyu, Guo, Zhang, Mi, Li, Wu and Guo (2024)
The Lycodon gammiei, or Gammie’s wolf snake, found on a tree in Tibet. Photos from XQ Mi via Shu, Lyu, Guo, Zhang, Mi, Li, Wu and Guo (2024)

Lycodon gammiei, also known as Gammie’s wolf snake or the Sikkim false wolf snake, is a nonvenomous species found in Tibet, Bhutan and India. This “exceedingly rare” species was discovered in 1878 and has only been collected about 10 times over the past 145 years, researchers said.

The last Gammie’s wolf snake captured in Tibet was found in 2010, the study said. The recent rediscovery of the species expanded its known range and allowed researchers to study its DNA for the first time.

Mêdog County is in southeastern Tibet, an autonomous region in the Himalayan mountains controlled by China, and near a disputed China-India border.

The research team included Fu Shu, Bing Lyu, Keji Guo, Tong Zhang, Xiaoqi Mi, Li Li, Yayong Wu and Peng Guo.

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