Massey University's Dr Luis Ortiz-Catedral has been on the famous Galapagos Islands studying snakes like the western Galapagos racer (pictured). Photo / Supplied
Massey University's Dr Luis Ortiz-Catedral has been on the famous Galapagos Islands studying snakes like the western Galapagos racer (pictured). Photo / Supplied
Hunting for snakes on an active volcano isn't your average day job.
But for one intrepid New Zealand scientist, that's just another day in a project following in the footsteps of Charles Darwin.
Massey University's Dr Luis Ortiz-Catedral has been closely involved in a joint effort on the Galapagos Islands, where the colourful abundance of endemic species famously contributed to Darwin's classic theories around evolution and natural selection.
The Pacific archipelago is home to reptiles of all shapes and sizes, from giant tortoises to iguanas, lizards and geckos.
Ortiz-Catedral, a conservation biologist at Massey's Institute of Natural and Mathematical Sciences, said snakes were also not often considered as worthy of conservation - and popular portrayals like that of the Iguana chased by snakes on BBC's Planet Earth II had reinforced the idea they are something to fear.
"They may not be cute and fuzzy, but the incredible creatures are worthy of conservation and are actually very docile," he said.
"However, since Darwin collected the first specimen in 1835, their biology has largely remained a mystery and has been understudied.
"In order to protect them, and even reintroduce them to islands where they once lived, field work and lab work was needed to get a firm grasp of their diversity, biology and more."
A collaboration between Galapagos National Park Directorate (GNDP) and University of California that Ortiz-Catedral launched in 2015 has aimed to better understand this diversity - along with the evolutionary relationship between these species and snakes on the South American continent.
Ortiz-Catedral said several new species, subspecies and "morphs" had been described, but much of this knowledge came from preserved museum specimens and outdated morphological analyses.
"Snake taxonomy is very complicated, but the Galapagos terrestrial snake taxonomy may be in a league of its own," he said.
"This complexity makes studying museum specimens hard as they are often faded as a result of the method of preservation and are sometimes mislabelled.
"The resulting descriptions and actual distinctions between species end up being rather fuzzy."
The research team thus focused on studying live specimens in the wild - something that meant scouring islands, finding more than 400 snakes, photographing them and taking tissue samples.
The western Galapagos racer devouring a lava lizard. Photo / Supplied
Ortiz-Catedral said that task had been "monumental" in size, but was now paying off.
Their research had since determined that most species and subspecies were restricted to a single island and its adjacent islets.
However, one species called the striped Galapagos snake - which also happened to be the islands' most graceful and elusive - was also found on other islands in the group.
A study now under way would help answer not just how many distinct species were on the islands, but also how they were related to other South American species.
Earlier this year, other researchers attempted to resolve the taxonomy of Galapagos snakes by using run-of-the mill molecular techniques, outdated morphological analyses and incomplete datasets.
"What sets our project apart is that the team are using the most complete dataset of live specimens to date - 30 lineages from across the archipelag - and advanced genotyping methods to compare thousands of genomes."
The Galapagos Islands are home to reptiles of all shapes and sizes, from giant tortoises to iguanas, lizards, geckos - and snakes. Photo / File
The team had a busy few months ahead — analysing the most comprehensive dataset on morphology of live snakes from Galapagos and completing the DNA analysis of the tissue samples.
"Our work goes beyond simply stating how many species of snakes exist in Galapagos," he added.
"We will also describe their evolutionary relationships and update the conservation status of each species to assist the GNPD in its task of preserving the species and ecosystems of these wonderful islands."
• Dr Luis Ortiz-Catedral will be giving a lecture on the project as part of Massey's Fascination Sciences lecture series, at 7pm this Tuesday in the Sir Neil Waters lecture theatre, at the university's Albany, Auckland, campus.
