A Puerto Rican scientist involved in the discovery of a new species of boa in the Bahamas.
This is the Puerto Rican Alberto Puente Rolon, a professor at the Interamerican University of Puerto Rico, Arecibo Campus, who was part of a team of scientists from Harvard University who made the discovery in July 2015 during an expedition to a remote part of Bahamas archipelago.
Experts have called argentum Chilabothrus the new species of silver boa, silver based on their color and location of the first sample in a argentata Cocothrinax Silver Palm.
Significantly, it is the first new species of boa discovered in situ in the Caribbean since the 1940s.
This new boa species is considered critically endangered and is one of the most endangered species Boa worldwide.
The team found the first individual, described as “a silver beautiful woman” (multi) meters long, up a tree near the water’s edge on a remote island in the southern Bahamas.
Bridge Rolon, Puerto Rican member of the expedition and boas world expert on the region, stressed that the reptile is unlike any other kind of boa and is still unknown.
Back at Harvard University, the team began analyzing the data they had collected from the new snake, including genetic data from tissue samples that had been obtained.
The analysis showed that this unusual silver boa was indeed a new species.
