Climate change bites for snakes

As the climate continues to change, India’s most dangerous venomous snakes may move into new places. Researchers modeled the range distributions of 30 venomous serpents across India under two different warming scenarios. Using nearly 5,000 sightings from citizen science platforms, social media groups, scientific literature and other open-access datasets, researchers found that about 3% of India’s landmass could have its biodiversity significantly changed in the most extreme warming scenarios by 2070. Researchers took a particularly close look at India’s “big four”—a quartet of snakes behind the most medically significant snakebites, causing 46,000 to 60,000 deaths each year. The list includes Russell’s viper (Daboia russelii), the common krait (Bungarus caeruleus), the Indian cobra (Naja naja) and the saw-scaled viper (Echis carinatus). Based on predicted range changes, researchers predicted a significant increase of snakebites in northern India, including Himalaya and northeast India, as well as the Western Ghats in the south. “Our goal is to bridge biodiversity conservation and public health, providing a framework that can inform conservation prioritization, antivenom allocation and rural healthcare preparedness under future climate conditions,” said TWS member and lead author Akshit Suthar.

Read more at Scientific Reports.