Snake names honor Darwin, prof:
Discovery
A Louisiana professor is in heady company, honored by having one of three newly identified species of snakes from the Galapagos Islands named after him.
“They named one after Charles Darwin – that’s a no-brainer – and one after the Greek god of fire, and one after me, of all people,” said Robert A. Thomas, an environmental biologist and head of head of the Center for Environmental Communication at Loyola University New Orleans.
The snake in question, a handsome critter with lengthwise brown and creamy yellow stripes, is called Pseudalsophis thomasi (sood-al-SO-fis TOM-uhs-eye).
“I’ve got a picture of it taped up here in the office, and it makes me smile every time I look at it,” Thomas said.
He’s been studying snakes since the 1970s and began studying those in the Galapagos Islands in 1984. In 1997, he published an overview of Galapagos snakes based on features such as scale counts, patterns and other shapes and forms.
A team of Brazilian and Ecuadorian biologists led by Dr Hussam Zaher of the Universidad de Sao Paolo used genetic analysis to restudy the snakes and work out their evolutionary route through the chain of islands. That study identified the three new species. In addition to Pseudalsophis thomasi, they are Pseudalsophis hephaestus, for the island chain’s volcanic origins; and Pseudalsophis darwini, for the scientist whose theory of evolution grew out of a voyage through the Galapagos. (AP)