ASHEVILLE - UNC Asheville assistant professor of biology Graham Reynolds has followed up his 2016 published discovery of the silver boa, Chilabothrus argentum, with the rediscovery of a species of boid snakes known as the Crooked-Acklins boa, Chilabothrus schwartzi.
These boas from the Crooked-Acklins Bank in the Bahamas were never documented as alive in the wild by researchers, having been previously known only from four dead specimens collected in the early 1970s.
No photographs of live wild examples had ever been published, and no juveniles had been documented. Reynolds co-authored a paper published in the journal Breviora this month that is the first report of live wild specimens.
Reynolds' team of researchers found three juvenile specimens and an adult female Crooked-Acklins Boa during an expedition in July 2017.
“We can now draw inferences on the biology of the species, including the habitats they occupy and the things that they eat,” Reynolds said. “For example, we discovered that the juveniles are arboreal, nocturnal and feed on sleeping lizards. The juveniles also =read more
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