Scientists Establish Great Nicobar’s Shiny Black Wolf Snake as a New Species

Tarun Karthick

Sri Vijaya Puram, 17 November 2025

A staff of scientists has found a totally new species of snake on Great Nicobar Island, some of the distant and biologically wealthy elements of the Nicobar group. The snake, now formally named Lycodon irwini, is a placing glossy-black wolf snake that had remained unidentified for years as a result of it intently resembles one other widespread species. The new analysis lastly confirms that the Great Nicobar inhabitants represents a definite species at present identified solely from the island.

The discovery was made by researchers from Pondicherry University, the Max Planck Institute for Biology (Tübingen), and one unaffiliated coauthor from Pune. To verify the species, the staff used a mixture of strategies—rigorously evaluating the snake’s bodily options, re-examining museum specimens, and conducting DNA evaluation. Their genetic research revealed a transparent distinction from associated wolf snakes, establishing that the Great Nicobar snake is exclusive and never merely an area variation of a identified species.

One of probably the most notable options of Lycodon irwini is its uniform shiny black color, not like shut kin that usually have white bands or patches. The snake is slender, nocturnal, and might develop near 1.2 metres in size. The researchers additionally documented a better variety of stomach and tail scales in comparison with related species, serving to verify its identification as a brand new species. The holotype—an grownup feminine—has the voucher quantity DOSMB 05114, offering a everlasting reference specimen for future analysis.

So far, the species has been recorded solely 4 instances, all from the moist evergreen forests of Great Nicobar, together with the holotype collected close to Gandhi Nagar. Because it seems extraordinarily uncommon and restricted to a really small geographical space, the authors advocate itemizing it as Endangered beneath IUCN standards, though this isn’t but an official evaluation.

The species has been named “irwini” to honour the late Australian conservationist Steve Irwin, whose enthusiasm for wildlife impressed generations of scientists and nature lovers.

The discovery of Lycodon irwini underscores the distinctive biodiversity of Great Nicobar, the place many species are discovered nowhere else on Earth.

Source: Naveen RS, Mirza ZA, Choure G, Chandramouli SR (2025) A ‘Crikey’ new snake: An insular Lycodon Fitzinger, 1826 (Squamata, Colubridae) from the Nicobar Archipelago, India. Evolutionary Systematics 9(2): 221–228. https://doi.org/10.3897/evolsyst.9.170645