The Hanoitimes - Japanese and Russian scientists have announced their discovery of a new striped Ichthyophis species in Vietnam’s Central Highlands on Japan’s Current Herpetology Journal.
The new species was discovered in Kon Tum province during a survey in 2006. The new species is distinguished from all other striped congeners by a combination of characters that includes: moderate body size and number of annuli, robust body and tail, broad and uninterrupted lateral stripe, tentacle far from eye, and small number of scale rows. The mitochondrial DNA sequence of the new species greatly differs from those of the other striped Ichthyophis from Indochina and its adjacent areas.
This is the second Ichthyophis species that has been found in Vietnam. The first was discovered in northern Vietnam.
The new species is named Ichthyophis nguyenorum Nishikawa, Matsui & Orlov 2012, after the Vietnamese, Japanese and Russian scientists who discovered it.
Ichthyophis is listed as an endangered animal in Vietnam’s Red Book.
Ichthyophis’ natural habitats are subtropical or tropical moist lowland forests, subtropical or tropical swamps, subtropical or tropical moist montane forests, rivers, intermittent rivers, shrub-dominated wetlands, swamps, pastureland, plantations, rural gardens, heavily degraded former forest, irrigated land, and seasonally flooded agricultural land
