A Taiwan team of researchers used DNA testing to show that Burmese pythons on outlying Kinmen Island are endemic, and not invasive as many of the locals believe, the Forestry Bureau under the ROC Council of Agriculture said Oct. 29.
The bureau funded the team led by Lin Si-min, a professor of the Department of Life Science at Taipei City-based National Taiwan Normal University, to conduct a survey and testing of the Python molurus bivittatus population. The team’s findings determined that the snakes were genetically most similar to their brethren in mainland China’s Fujian province, proving the species was endemic to the island.
The research was first revealed in the May issue of Scientific American, followed by an academic paper published under the title “Return of the pythons: first formal records, with a special note on recovery of the Burmese python in the demilitarized Kinmen islands” in the September issue of prestigious international journal Zoological Studies.
This is the first survey of wild pythons conducted in Taiwan and makes Kinmen a case study for the recovery of a rare species in a former war zone, the bureau said.
According to the survey, the pythons drew the attention of locals and researchers after their numbers began to rise in 2000, and peaked in 2010.
Burmese pythons are a major problem in Florida, where they are invasive, and Kinmen locals once believed the local population had come from specimens let loose by smugglers, the bureau said.
But the researchers found records of pythons being caught in the years following the military takeover of the islands in the 1940s. However, most of the pythons’ habitat was heavily affected by military deployment on the island during the shelling of the war years.
With the gradual return of peace across the Taiwan Strait and the withdrawal of most military forces, python numbers revived, the bureau said, adding that the study is of special interest for the light it sheds on preservation of species diversity in former war zones. The island’s other notable endemic species include the blue-tailed bee-eater, cormorant, horseshoe crab, otter and Reeves’ turtle.
Lin’s team also used wireless tracking to monitor the pythons, the first time this has been done on the snakes in Asia, the bureau said.
The greatest threat to Kinmen’s pythons remains the human population, including death from development, traffic and trapping. In the past three years, one quarter of the tracked sample was caught and killed.
The pythons are no threat to humans, with no attacks on record in Asia, the bureau added, but they play an important role in controlling such pests as rats. In recent years, the bureau has worked with Kinmen County Government to promote conservation efforts, beginning with education in schools.
Kinmen’s pythons will also feature in an exhibition on DNA to be held at Taichung City-based National Museum of Natural Science in November, the bureau said. (SDH)
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