HONG KONG: U.S. scientists say they’ve identified the cause of a mysterious die-off of snakes of several species in the East and Midwest.
They had zeroed in on a condition known as snake fungal disease (SFD) beginning in 2005, when some snakes in New Hampshire started dying from severe skin infections.
When the disease, which can cause ulcers, blisters and thickened skin, spread to nine states and affected at least seven different snake species, researchers increased their efforts to identify the exact fungal variety behind the increase in SFD deaths.
SFD has been has been found in snake species in Illinois, Wisconsin, Ohio, Minnesota, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York and Tennessee, researchers with the U.S. Geological Survey say.
The culprit is a fungus known as Ophidiomyces ophiodiicola, they report in the journal mBio.
They say they’ve determined how the disease progresses in infected snakes, a finding that could lead to strategies to treat infected snakes and combat the fungus affecting vulnerable snake populations.
Snakes in the wild are important predators of pests that can damage or destroy agricultural crops and of rats that can harbor disease, while providing food for other, larger predatory animals, the researchers note.
