Treasure of the month

May 2017

Black house snake

The treasure of the month of May is a black house snake, the type specimen of Boaedon nigrum. A doctor working in West Africa caught the animal more than 150 years ago on the island of São Thomé. Today, the historically valuable specimen is the subject of current research.

The type specimen was described in 1856 by Johann Gustav Fischer, a teacher at the Johanneum and external collaborator of the then Natural History Museum. In total, he described 103 new reptile species from the Herpetological Collection.

An international research team led by Dr. Jakob Hallermann, curator of the Herpetology Department, is investigating the relationships of the African house snakes. The aim is to clarify the question of how the black house snakes arrived on the isolated West African island of São Tomé. For this purpose the type specimen is of special importance.