{"id":556987,"date":"2026-03-24T07:17:40","date_gmt":"2026-03-24T07:17:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/556987\/"},"modified":"2026-03-24T07:17:40","modified_gmt":"2026-03-24T07:17:40","slug":"pit-viper-flying-snake-and-geckos-among-new-species-uncovered-in-cambodian-caves-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/556987\/","title":{"rendered":"Pit viper, flying snake and geckos among new species uncovered in Cambodian caves"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n Cambodia\u2019s<\/a> largely unexplored limestone caves stretch for thousands of miles, are home to countless undiscovered species and host unique ecosystems, with creatures found nowhere else on Earth.\n <\/p>\n

\n Now, a new survey of caves in the northwestern province of Battambang has uncovered a range of species that are new to science, including a turquoise pit viper, a flying snake, several geckos, two micro-snails and two millipedes.\n <\/p>\n

\n The viper and three of the newly discovered gecko species are still being formally named and characterized. The other finds have been officially recognized over the course of the biodiversity survey, which explored 64 caves across 10 hills between November 2023 and July 2025, and was published in a report<\/a> Monday.\n <\/p>\n

\n Each hill and cave in Cambodia\u2019s rocky karst landscape \u2013\u2013 a term for a landscape created when rocks break down, forming large cave springs, sinking streams and sinkholes \u2013\u2013 is isolated from the others. Each performs as its own individual \u201cisland laboratory\u201d of evolution, holding numerous distinct life forms that have adapted to their niche habitat, according to UK-based conservation charity Fauna & Flora, which led the survey along with Cambodia\u2019s Ministry of Environment and field experts.\n <\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

\n \u201cThink of it as their own vignette of biodiversity, where nature is performing the same experiment over and over again independently,\u201d evolutionary biologist Lee Grismer, professor of biology at La Sierra University in California, who supported the survey team, said in a statement.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cWe go to these separate places and analyse the DNA of the species, and we see how the experiment has run. Some look alike, some look different, and by analysing this we can get an idea of what the driving forces are behind the way they evolve,\u201d he added.\n <\/p>\n

\n For instance, while researchers identified one species of the striped Kamping Poi bent-toed gecko, named Cyrtodactylus kampingpoiensis, during fieldwork in 2024, they found four different populations evolving in different ways.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cIf we are truly going to conserve the biodiversity on this planet, we need to understand what is there,\u201d Grismer continued. \u201cWe can\u2019t protect something if we don\u2019t know it exists.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Globally threatened species such as the Sunda pangolin, green peafowl, long-tailed macaque and northern pig-tailed macaque were also found in the landscape during the latest survey.\n <\/p>\n

\n Conservation biologist Pablo Sinovas led the Fauna & Flora team in Cambodia, working with local researchers to get an idea of the terrain during the day and \u2013\u2013 the \u201cfun part\u201d \u2013\u2013 look for creatures such as snakes and geckos at night, \u201cwhen they are most active, when they come out of hiding,\u201d he told CNN.\n <\/p>\n

\n The team would head out after sunset and spend hours traversing \u201csharp, rocky terrain\u201d with torches, \u201clooking around every crevice, looking around caves in the landscape, rocks, branches, vegetation, really everywhere. It was kind of a nice search party,\u201d said Sinovas, who is now a senior program manager at the charity.\n <\/p>\n

\n Some caves in the region hold up to one million bats, although the research team did not enter caves with large bat colonies due to health concerns, according to the report.\n <\/p>\n

\n Karst landscapes make up about 9% of Cambodia\u2019s land area, at 20,000 square kilometers (or 7,722 square miles), said the report, which outlined that \u201ca large portion of this is still unknown to science.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Fourteen caves that had not previously been surveyed were registered on one karst hill in the Banan district of the Battambang Province.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cThere is more exploration to be done,\u201d said Sinovas, adding that they have only \u201cscratched the surface\u201d in terms of the biodiversity that is waiting to be discovered in the ecosystems of the wider landscape in Cambodia.\n <\/p>\n

\"Laang<\/p>\n

\n As well as hosting a range of species, many of the caves are used as shrines, or for meditation and other rituals, and are visited by tourists and pilgrims, according to the report.\n <\/p>\n

\n Even so, karst habitats are under threat from poorly planned extraction for cement, as well as overtourism, wildlife hunting, logging and wildfires.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cThere is growing demand for cement and karst limestone is useful for the making of cement and, so, karst provides a very important raw material,\u201d said Sinovas.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cBut, obviously, if you destroy an area where certain species live, and those species don\u2019t live anywhere else, then you would automatically potentially lead to the extinction of species \u2013\u2013 in some cases, of species that haven\u2019t even been described yet,\u201d he continued.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cSo, we are working with (the) government to ensure that these important areas are better protected,\u201d Sinovas said, adding that there are ongoing discussions regarding \u201cgiving this area some sort of protective status, so that they can be preserved into the future.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n \ufeffDaniel Olivares Gallego contributed to this story.\n <\/p>\n

\n EDITOR\u2019S NOTE:\u00a0 Call to Earth is a CNN editorial series committed to reporting on the environmental challenges facing our planet, together with the solutions. Rolex\u2019s Perpetual Planet Initiative<\/a> has partnered with CNN to drive awareness and education around key sustainability issues and to inspire positive action.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cambodia\u2019s largely unexplored limestone caves stretch for thousands of miles, are home to countless undiscovered species and host…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":555401,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[49,48,66,323],"class_list":["post-556987","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/556987","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=556987"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/556987\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/555401"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=556987"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=556987"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=556987"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}