Captured by : PG3. MASTHEAD LEFT
A rainbow-headed snake, a tiny frog and a lizard with dragon-like horns are among more than 150 new species confirmed by scientists last year in the ecologically diverse but threatened Mekong region, researchers said recently. The Greater Mekong region -- which includes southwestern China, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Myanmar -- is under intense pressure from dam and road building as well as a thriving illegal wildlife trade, much of it centred around the lawless Golden Triangle area where the latter three meet.
In total, scientists described 163 new species in 2015 including nine amphibians, three mammals, 11 fish, 14 reptiles and 126 plants. Among the most eye-catching are parafimbrios lao, a snake found in the limestone karsts of northern Laos whose scales reflect rainbow-like colours around its head. On the Thai tourist island of Phuket, which has seen huge development in recent decades, scientists found a lizard (acanthosaura phuketensis) with a fearsome-looking ridge of horns down its head and back. In Cambodia and Vietnam, a new frog species that could fit on a finger tip was also discovered. Between 1997 and 2015 there have been 2,409 new species described in the Greater Mekong, the equivalent of two new discoveries a week.
