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Rachel Nuwer and Chang W. Lee each joined a nighttime salamander hunt in Kyoto, Japan, and visited a herpetology lab at Kyoto University while reporting this article.

But their herpetology hunt turned into a fungus find.

“It’s a remarkably weird thing,” said David Blackburn, the curator of herpetology at the Florida Museum and author of the study.

The May 2022 discovery and naming of the snake were disclosed in a study published Tuesday in Salamandra, a German journal of herpetology, the study of snakes.

Jon Rold, supervisor of herpetology and entomology at the Houston Zoo, said it was a matter of luck that Mr. and Mrs. Pickles had bred successfully and that the eggs had been found in time.