Before you go and get all emotional and shed tears of joy, be advised that the snake doesn’t actually cry.
The species — a keelback — has been so named because of a dark spot under its eyes that looks like a tear drop.
The ‘crying’ keelback was discovered by Jayaditya Purkayastha, a Guwahati-based zoologist in the Basar area of the northeastern Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh, The Hindu newspaper reported.
“We are working on many new species of amphibians and reptiles and hope to conduct the research published by the middle of this year,” Purkayastha told The Hindu newspaper. “There is much of scope in research pertaining to herpetofauna in northeast India but we need support from government bodies,” he said.
The crying keelback had to be compared with 44 species of snakes worldwide under the genus Hebius. “I had data on 20 species of this genus. So I collaborated with Patrick David of the Paris-based National Museum of Natural History who had data on another 22,” Purkayastha was cited by The Hindu.