It is not too unusual for a scientist to discover and name a new species of snake, but 72 in one go, well that has not happened in over 100 years.
And in Australia, never before!
But there is no need to panic, none of them are venomous.
Every single species is a so-called Blind Snake.
These are small, pinkish earthworm like snakes that spend most of their lives underground eating ant eggs and ants. They are rarely seen and effectively unknown to most people.
While they are totally harmless and do not even bite people (their mouths are too small), they do have a habit of defecating on people when picked up.
Because of this nasty habit, Snake Man Raymond Hoser who just named the 76 species gave one of the largest ones the scientific name Sivadictus greatstinkofaustralia Hoser, 2025.
Another one was named Sloppytyphlops shittythingie Hoser, 2025.
Most of the rest have boring Latin type names, but a few species were given names of Aboriginals killed by police, others named after fellow snake scientists and a few given names simply to draw attention to the relatively innocuous and overlooked species to other scientists, like the east Arnhem Land species Aa aa Hoser, 2025, which is now set to be the number one species on all indexes of animals in zoology.
Under naming rules of the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature, each two part scientific name must consist of at least two letters, so Aa aa will now be the insurmountable number one on all zoological lists.
Furthermore, because the Blind Snakes all look alike, telling species apart has never been easy.
They are also found world-wide.
There are about 400 known species of them worldwide and within Australia it was until now about 55 species.
Various molecular studies in Australia and elsewhere in the last 20 years have flagged new species, indicating that half to two thirds remained effectively unknown to science.
For more than a decade, Snake Man, Raymond Hoser has systematically screened the Blindsnakes from across Australia and elsewhere to sort out the taxonomy and work out the exact number of species.
13 years ago, Hoser split the Blindsnakes up globally at the higher, genus and supra-generic level.
He also named a relatively small number of new species of blind snake, including five here in Australia in 2013.
But this time around, Hoser did what others thought may never be done. He went through all of them forensically, matching up DNA with animals to sort out the classification of them all.
Molecular studies flagged about 60-90 unnamed species and Hosers final analysis led to 76 obviously unnamed species, all of which he formally named.
These newly named species come from all mainland States of Australia, including four from Victoria and greater numbers in the other states.
The State with by far the greatest number of both newly named and previously named species was Western Australia.
Hoser notes that the increased aridification of Australia over the last 5 million years has strongly driven speciation in the Australian Blindsnakes, both directly and as a result of species competing with one another and the successful wide-ranging species often driving the less adaptable ones to isolated upland areas.
Hoser notes that there are other still unnamed species of blindsnake in Australia likely to be named.
After all, taxa less than 1.5 million years divergent were generally ignored, whereas for other reptiles times of divergence in excess of a million years usually leads to recognition as a different species.
Most of these species look similar to one another and can only be separated by close inspection.
This was already the case for the other 50 odd species which most people, including most snake handlers would struggle to tell apart.
Hoser is so used to them these says that he can generally tell one from another, including all the newly named species from a poor quality photos or a fairly cursory glance.
He says differences in shapes of given scales on the head (all of which have a technical name) is usually enough to tell you one species from another.
Other things used to differentiate them is the length of the snake versus its girth, rows of scales around the body, number of belly scales, colour configurations, especially on the sides and even shape of the snout.
Hoser says dealing with Blind Snakes is much the same as when a mechanic deals with a car. When you know what goes where, it is all very easy. But for everyone else it is gobbledygook.
Blind Snakes are largely unknown to science and scientists.
For most species, while it is known they eat ants and ants eggs, which ones they eat is largely unknown.
The conservation status is also unknown for most.
A number of species are known from just one specimen, including for example the uniquely different Buckleytyphlops sincerus, known only from a single specimen in the outback of far northwest Queensland.
That is just one of two Australian species lacking a spine on the end of its tail.
Introduced species of ants playing havoc with native species may also be wiping out Blind Snake species while zoologists have no idea what is actually going on.
Hoser says that as a matter of urgency government wildlife departments need to reprioritise and stop over-regulating private keepers of pet reptiles and instead spend their money doing basic research on innocuous species like Blind Snakes, some of which could be facing extinction in the very near future.
Hosers work on Blindsnakes was published in three book-sized volumes and is definitely not a light read. However the title of the monograph spells out the present situation with regards to Blind Snakes.

It is:

Hoser, R. T. 2025. Before Australian Blind Snakes (Squamata: Serpentes: Scolecophidia) become extinct through bureaucratic indifference ... The description of four new genera and seventy six new species. Australasian Journal of Herpetology, 76-78:1-192.

Hard copies are available at:
http://www.herp.net

Further information and photos can be obtained from Raymond Hoser, The Snake Man.
Phone:
(Australia) 0412777211
Email:
snakeman (at) snakeman.com.au
Further information about Snake Man Raymond Hoser can be found at:
snakeman.com.au

Raymond Hoser is the Snakeman. Details of his work here.