New Pitviper & Two New Lizards Discovered
Posted by: Loren Coleman on August 7th, 2008
Ta Kou lizard (Cyrtodactylus takouensis).
Two species of lizard and one species of pit viper [in the Vietnamese release = rattle-snake] were recently discovered on mountains in the provinces of Binh Thuan, Dong Nai and Kien Giang, Vietnam.
The two new species of lizard belong to the Gekkonidae family. The first species, called Ta Kou lizard (Cyrtodactylus takouensis sp. nov. Ngô & Bauer, 2008), is 171.4mm long. Its back has 5 lines in light chocolate and five lines in yellow. Its tail has 3 lines. This lizard was found in a cave in the Ta Kou Nature Reserve in Binh Thuan province.
Huynh lizard (Cyrtodactylus huynhi)
The other species of lizard, named Huynh lizard (Cyrtodactylus huynhi sp. nov Ngô & Bauer, 2008) was discovered in a cave on Chua Chan mountain in Dong Nai province. It is 147.5mm long, with 5-6 lines in dark brown on its back and 10 lines in light and dark brown on its tail.
This lizard species is named after Professor Dang Huy Huynh, the first Rector of the Ecological and Fauna Resources Institute.
The Hon Son pit viper [rattle-snake] (Cryptelytrops honsonensis sp. nov. Grismer, Ngô & Grismer, 2008) belongs to the Viperidae family and it was discovered on Hon Son Island, Kien Giang province. It is around 626-648mm long.
These discoveries are the result of cooperation between researcher Ngo Van Tri from the HCM City Tropical Biology Institute and Professor Aaron M. Bauer, Jesse .L. Grismer from Villanova University (US) and Professor L. Lee Grismer from La Sierra University (US).
To avoid forgotten land mines, La Sierra University reptile expert Lee Grismer and his son, Jesse, waded far up a Cambodian river last August 2007, hunting new species. Their wet, two-mile hike took place during a weeks-long trek through remote Southeast Asian rainforests. They traversed Vietnamese jungles and Cambodia’s Cardamom Mountains, the former stronghold of murderous Cambodian dictator Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge army. Former Khmer Rouge soldiers, wearing their iconic red headscarves, served as the Grismer’s guides.
The team’s perilous venture paid off. The herpetologist and his 25-year-old son discovered between six and eight new species, including a small, brown pit viper adorned with jagged, black stripes and a golden brown gecko with white stripes and dark green eyes.
The father-son species detective team found the pit viper on top of a small Vietnamese island. The Grismers, together with a Vietnamese colleague, discovered the gecko in caves in the Mekong Delta of southern Vietnam. They came upon another new gecko species following their two-mile, night-time river wade in Cambodia.
The elder Grismer has discovered upwards of 40 new animals over the last eight years, mainly in Malaysia, Vietnam, Cambodia and Baja California, Mexico. He has amassed more than 8,000 tissue samples in a lab freezer awaiting analysis.
The 2007 summer’s trip to Asian jungles resulted in the acquisition of about 300 specimens of 40 to 50 different species including frogs, legless amphibians called apodans, turtles, lizards and snakes.
Zootaxa, an international journal for animal taxonomists, published an article Feb. 29, 2008, announcing the pit viper, Cryptelytrops honsonensis. The new (unnamed) gecko (shown below) discovery will also be announced in Zootaxa.
Credit: Mai Loan, VietNamNet Bridge, August 7, 2008. Wildlife Extra, 2008.
It clearly is a media mistranslation to call the new snake a “rattle-snake.” It is a pitviper or pit viper. See the pdf of the paper about it here.
About Loren Coleman
Loren Coleman is one of the world’s leading cryptozoologists, some say “the” leading living cryptozoologist. Certainly, he is acknowledged as the current living American researcher and writer who has most popularized cryptozoology in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
Starting his fieldwork and investigations in 1960, after traveling and trekking extensively in pursuit of cryptozoological mysteries, Coleman began writing to share his experiences in 1969. An honorary member of Ivan T. Sanderson’s Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained in the 1970s, Coleman has been bestowed with similar honorary memberships of the North Idaho College Cryptozoology Club in 1983, and in subsequent years, that of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club, CryptoSafari International, and other international organizations. He was also a Life Member and Benefactor of the International Society of Cryptozoology (now-defunct).
Loren Coleman’s daily blog, as a member of the Cryptomundo Team, served as an ongoing avenue of communication for the ever-growing body of cryptozoo news from 2005 through 2013. He returned as an infrequent contributor beginning Halloween week of 2015.
Coleman is the founder in 2003, and current director of the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine.
Welcome to the family of known specimens, dear crypt-ids! You are now, databased.
Great looking specimens.
Maybe we can pay the gekkos to be in one of the Geico commercials. That Brit Gekko is getting old 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂
I love these types of posts. Thanks for sharing that info! I hope to see many more like it, in the coming years.