The Myth Of The "Singing Snakes" Turns Out To Be A New Frog Species

The Myth Of The "Singing Snakes" Turns Out To Be A New Frog Species

According to the legends told by the natives and the tales told by the European colonists, corners of Amazonian rainforest in Ecuador and Peru are home to a bushmaster viper that fills the night with eerie shrieking songs.

But scientists weren’t particularly content with the idea, being that – you know – snakes don't generally sing. So they took to the Amazonian Ecuador and Peru in the hopes of unraveling the myth with an ensemble of scientists from Catholic University of Ecuador, the Peruvian Institute of Research of the Amazon, Ecuadorian Museum of Natural Sciences, and Colorado State University in the US.

Disappointingly, no singing snakes were found during the field study. They did, however, find that the source of the “song” was two species of tree frog, one of which is unknown to science. Their study on the frog’s DNA, appearance, and identification was published in the journal ZooKeys.

More:
http://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/the-myth-of-the-singing-snakes-turns-out-to-be-a-new-frog-species/

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Disentangling the myth of the singing bushmaster viper with the help of tree frogs

November 17, 2016

Reaching over 3.5 m in length, the bushmaster (belonging in the Lachesis genus) is the largest viper in the western hemisphere. Legend spread among both colonists and natives from the Amazon region and Central America has it that it sings. Finding these numerous unrelated reports quite puzzling, since it is well known that snakes cannot sing, scientists took to finally disentangle the myth.photo-2

When the researchers recently conducted fieldwork in Amazonian Ecuador and Peru, they revealed it was not the snake singing. The ‘song’ was indeed the call of large tree frogs that live in hollow trunks in the forest.

More:
http://blog.pensoft.net/2016/11/17/disentangling-the-myth-of-the-singing-bushmaster-viper-with-the-help-of-tree-frogs/

Science:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/122849724