Source: People’s Republic of China in Russian –
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Nanning, May 10 /Xinhua/ — Chinese researchers have discovered a new species of snake — the Guangxi bamboo snake, which scares away predators by imitating a second head using its tail.
This discovery, detailed last month in the journal Zoosystematics and Evolution, was the result of a broader study of biodiversity in the Huapin National Nature Reserve in the Guangxi-Zhuang Autonomous Region of southern China. The team from the Guangxi Museum of Natural History was one of several groups involved in the research.
The snake, slightly over 20 centimeters long, has a slender brownish body. Researchers noted that along its back there are seven dark interrupted stripes, and the dark pigment along the edges of the scales creates a characteristic reticulated pattern.
This species leads primarily a nocturnal and semi-underground lifestyle, spending most of its time hidden in leaf litter, bent soil, and rock crevices. Field groups found it in broadleaf forests at an altitude of approximately 760 meters, where it moves along the forest floor, feeding on a specialized diet of earthworms and soft-bodied insect larvae.
Despite its dramatic defensive posture, researchers described this creature as meek, non-venomous, and non-aggressive. The most characteristic behavior of this snake is that when frightened it coils its body into a figure eight or raises its blunt, rounded tail, mimicking a head — a feature for which it earned the nickname “two-headed snake.”
This discovery is the second significant one in the Khuapin National Nature Reserve this year after the discovery at the beginning of 2026 of the Khuapin leaf-eating frog, also known as Leptobrachella cathaya.
Researchers stated that these recent discoveries emphasize the critical role of the reserve as a site for conserving biological diversity and underscore the growing recognition of the ancient forests in the northern part of Guangxi as a vital global “gene bank” for rare species.
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