DID YOU KNOW?

Cropan’s boa Corallus cropanii

Thought extinct for 64 years.

The first time was in 1953 where it was described by another herpetologist in the institute.”

The Lazarus taxon draws its name from the biblical Gospel of John which sees Jesus raise Lazarus from the dead.

There are roughly 350 Lazarus species presently. Some of these animals have thought to be extinct for over 300 years.

The most famous of the Lazarus species is the Coelacanth. Palaeontologists believed these giant fish were victims of the same extinction event that wiped out the dinosaurs 66 million years ago. This was until one was found in a fish market in South Africa in 1938. Two of the 90 documented species remain.

Many Lazarus species have evolved on extremely remote islands and are particularly fragile. Despite humans often avoiding these hard-toreach locations, just one accidental introduction of domesticated goats or cats could destroy the entire ecosystem.

The Cropan’s boa is the rarest species of boa on planet earth. Confined to the rapidly declining Atlantic Forest on the borders of Sao Paulo in Brazil, this species was thought to be extinct since 1953. A public campaign to encourage local people to search for the snake proved successful in 2017 when the first live specimen in over six decades was brought to researchers from the University of Sao Paulo and the Butantan Institute (a biological research centre). The live specimen which was captured by local farmers provided the researchers with new opportunities, after studying the same five deceased specimens for many years.

The Butanan Institute published the following information on the day of the discovery (translated from Portuguese): “Known as Boa-do-Ribeira or Boa-de-Cropan this is the second of its species found in its habitat, the Valedo-Ribeira region of Sao Paulo.

“After an initial collection on information, it will be released into its natural environment so that its biology and habits are studied through radiotelemetry device inserted into the animal. This will allow its monitoring in nature and send information to researchers.”

Since the rediscovery of a live specimen in 2017 a handful of dead animals have been found, with the most recent animal being brought to researchers in March 2021. This animal was unfortunately killed in a road accident by a woman in the Guapiruvu neighbourhood, but due to community outreach programmes, her son identified the rare snake and took it to researchers at the Jiboia do Ribeira Project, who said: “Although it’s a sad picture, we need to look at the positive perspective of the record. The animal represents the tenth individual of the species found, which will be dropped in the scientific collection and all possible information will be taken advantage of.

Voeltzkows Chameleon

Furcifer voeltzkowi

Thought extinct for 103 years.

After previously being disregarded as the rhinoceros chameleon (Furcifer rhinoceratus), the Voeltzkows chameleon was only recently reconsidered as its own species based on specimens which were sourced over 100 years ago. This new desire for discovery led a team of German researchers on an expedition to Northwest Madagascar in 2020 to rediscover this species which, until this point, had never been truly studied in the wild.

Their results state “During a targeted expedition, we rediscovered F. voeltzkowi in its natural habitat close to its type locality, allowing us to fill some gaps of knowledge. Furcifer voeltzkowi is a sexually dimorphic species. The life colouration of males is largely green, whereas that of females is highly variable and can be extremely colourful… show[ing] close similarities to F. labordi. [We can] confirm that F. voeltzkowi is a distinct species and sister to F. labordi.”

Being so closely related to the Labords chameleon (F. labordi), it is expected that this species has a very short life cycle. In fact, the Labords chameleon has the shortest lifespan of any vertebrate on the planet, surviving for just 5 months after hatching. Their entire life cycle revolves around the seasons, with eggs hatching in November at the beginning of the wet season. These little lizards will then eat voraciously until they reach sexual maturity in January. They spend February breeding and by March the entire population will die off before the arrival of the dry season.

The paper continues: “We estimate the distribution range (extent of occurrence) of F. voeltzkowi to comprise ca. 1.000 km2 and suggest that it qualifies as Endangered under the IUCN Red List Criteria as its populations are expected to be severely fragmented, and there is continuing decline in the extent and quality of its habitat.”

Voeltzkow’s chameleon is thought to have very similar seasonal characteristics to its sister species which could explain why they went ‘missing’ for such a long time. With extensive floods destroying many of the roads to the remote locations where these chameleons come from, the rains likely hid this species from humanity for over a century.