The brown tree snake is a stealthy, international traveler.
Invasive to Guam, this snake species known with a botanical name, Boiga irregularis, first arrived on the Pacific island during World War II, most likely by hitchhiking on troop carriers from Australia, according to a statement.
Ever since, it has been devastating native bird populations in Guam and nearby islands. Since these snakes don't have natural predators to hunt them there, they were able to rapidly multiply, according to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS).
Their venom, thought to be unique, contains two separate toxins that, together, make it 1,000 times more toxic to birds and reptiles than to mammals (their bite has only a minor effect on adult humans).
But in a recent study, researchers investigated the venom of other snakes in the genus Boiga and found that they too had this double-toxin venom. So, any of these other species might have caused similar devastation on bird populations had they spread like the brown tree snake.(Reported on Sept. 12 in the Journal of Molecular Evolution).
Now, researchers are concerned that brown tree snakes and others will continue to spread to new habitats … by boarding flights.
"It's just that this particular species was transported to Guam by accident," senior author Bryan Fry, associate professor in the school of biological sciences at the University of Queensland,revealed in the statement.
The brown tree snake is native Indonesia, the Solomon Islands, New Guinea and Australia, according to the USGS. And what made it easier for them to travel to new places, at least for the last 80 years or so, are planes, Fry said.
The snakes continue to hitchhike — especially on military planes flying from Guam to Hawaii, according to the statement. "They’re regularly intercepted in the Hawaii airports, so if these direct flights are allowed to continue, it’s only a matter of time until they get to Hawaii and wipe out the birds like they did on Guam," Fry said.
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