Was a milk snake discovered in the Galapagos?



Equador's Ministerio del Ambiente (Ministry of the Environment) announced that yesterday, a group of citizens from the island of Santa Cruz in the Galapagos Islands gave the Rangers a snake so far unidentified, possibly a false coral, that was hit on the road Puerto Ayora - Itabaca Channel, off Santa Rosa parish.

After reviewing the photograph published to the ministry's website, kingsnake.com staff members agree that the snake appears to be a member of the Lampropeltis triangulum group, known commonly as milk snakes. Possibly a member of the micropholis subspecies, found natively in Ecuador and known as the Equadoran milk snake, little has been published on the sub-species, and few specimens or even photographs exist.

As milk snakes are not known to be native to the Galapagos, it is most likely that the snake arrived as a stowaway and slipped through the Galapagos quarantine programs. If so, according to historical record, this would be the first confirmed case of snake introduction to the Galapagos Islands. But there is also the slim chance that the snakes are native to the island, their presence being unknown and unrecorded for all these years.

The Ministry of Environment, through the Galapagos National Park (GNP) and the Agency for the Regulation and Control of Biosecurity and Quarantine for Galapagos (ABG), has established an action plan to monitor the area finding and determine the possible origin.

To read the original press release in Spanish, click here. To read a Google translation, click here.