New worm-eating snake named after Mizoram herpetologist

GUWAHATI

The forests of Mizoram and its neighbor Myanmar have revealed a new-to-science snake that enjoys worms and prefers to stay underground.

The snake, Trachischium lalremsangai, was described by a team of four scientists from two continents in the international journal Herpetozoa of the Austrian Herpetological Society. They are Virender K. Bhardwaj, Amit K. Bal and Chhangte L. Tluanga from Mizoram University and Zeeshan A. Mirza from Germany’s Max Planck Institute of Biology.

The researchers named their findings after Mizoram University Zoology professor Hmar Tlawmte Lalremsanga; For his “outstanding contributions to herpetology in India”, mentoring students and promoting research collaborations in the Indo-Burma biodiversity hotspot.

This hotspot of approximately 2.4 million square kilometers covers the northeastern region south of the Brahmaputra River, parts of Bangladesh, China, Malaysia, and all of Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, and Vietnam.

According to the researchers, the new snake species from the Trachischium genus was identified based on two samples. The Mizoram University team found the first specimen during an expedition to the 100-square-kilometer Murlen National Park, near Mizoram’s 510-kilometer border with Myanmar.

This snake had two scales behind its eyes and a light brown belly, unlike its relative species, which have a dark brown to black belly, the researchers noted. They generated DNA sequences from the sample that confirmed its distinctiveness.

These data were shared with Zeeshan Mirza, who came across a second specimen of the discussed species among the collections of the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco during a research visit in September 2025. The second sample was collected from Haka Town in Myanmar’s Chin State in 2007 and was identified as Trachischium reticulata, to which it was related to the sample observed in Murlen National Park.

“Snakes belonging to the genus Trachischium are commonly known as slender snakes or worm-eating snakes. They are small and tend to live underground in loose soil. These harmless snakes feed primarily on worms, and because they spend most of their lives underground, there is much to learn about their biology,” the study said.

Trachischium lalremsangai is the eleventh species of its kind found in the northeast and the Himalayas.