New crocodile species found hiding in plain sight
It’s not every day that you find a new crocodile species. For the first time in more than 80 years, researchers have fully described and named a new species—the Central African slender-snouted crocodile—which is found in a broad swathe of the continent from Cameroon to Tanzania.
This species has been dubbed Mecistops leptorhynchus, and characterized in a study published on October 24 in the journal Zootaxa.
The animal was, until now, considered to be the same species as its West African counterpart, Mecistops cataphractus, which will retain its original scientific name. The new designation brings the total population of the West African species down enough that it is now considered critically endangered. There are only about 500 individuals left in the wild, estimates Matt Shirley, study lead author and a researcher at Florida International University.
Central African slender-snouted crocs have softer, smoother appearance than their West African cousins, which have larger, heavier scales and rougher skin, Shirley explains. The newly-described croc also lacks the bony crests on its skull found on its counterpart.
But the main differences lie in the genes—and these differences are significant. The paper shows the animals’ genetics first diverged more than eight million years ago, as volcanos arose in and around what is now Cameroon. This volcanic activity created impassable mountains that split the range of the reptiles in two, cutting off gene flow, and the two populations haven’t exchanged genes since, says Shirley, a National Geographic Explorer.
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