A pickled snake, now identified as the Nyanga rinkhals, a new species Jens Reissig
A hooded, venom-spitting snake that was pickled and has been at a museum in Zimbabwe for 40 years has been identified as a new species based on DNA analysis.
The snake, named the Nyanga rinkhals (Hemachatus nyangensis), comes from the mountainous Nyanga region of Zimbabwe, but it may have already gone extinct.
A female specimen kept at the Natural History Museum of Zimbabwe in Bulawayo was found run over in 1982. It was initially identified as another rinkhals species, …
