Guwahati, April 14 -- In a discovery that underscores how much of Northeast India's wildlife remains undocumented, researchers have identified a new species of fossorial reed snake from Meghalaya's Garo Hills.

The species, Calamaria garoensis, or the Garo Hills reed snake, has been formally described in the international peer-reviewed journal Taprobanica.

The finding is the result of a multi-institutional collaboration involving Help Earth, Cotton University, Assam Don Bosco University, Mizoram University, the Zoological Survey of India, and Indonesia's National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN).

The new species was recorded during field surveys in West Garo Hills, with the holotype collected from Oragitok in Rongram Block, an ecol...