Researchers have discovered multiple rare and new species in previously unexplored caves in Cambodia, including a flying snake and a florescent-turquoise pit viper.Those creatures were found during a multi-year biodiversity study that surveyed more than 60 limestone caves in western Cambodia’s Battambang province. The project took researchers to 10 different hills across the region known for its karsts, which are limestone cliffs filled with hidden caves and ecosystems, according to a report by Fauna & Flora Cambodia, an organization that led the study alongside the country’s ministry of environment. Cambodia’s karst formations have historically been some of the least-studied of their kind, the organization said. It described the karsts as “small islands of habitat, each with its own collection of plants and animals,” which became isolated from each other over time, as human activity sprung up around them.AdvertisementAdvertisement”Surrounded by a sea of inhospitable, human-made landscapes, many of these creatures are, in effect, trapped,” said Fauna & Flora. “Today, each of those miniature karst havens contains species that are found nowhere else in the world.”From November 2023 to July 2025, teams of experts ventured into the caves through narrow gaps in the limestone, weaving their way through dark tunnels that, often, were only large enough for them to crawl on hands and knees. Photos and video show the explorers squeezing through jagged crevices deep inside the karsts, using flashlights to guide them further along an otherwise pitch-black maze of rocky burrows. In some footage, bats fly just overhead.New and familiar speciesPast the web of tight spaces sat an untouched series of caves, where researchers uncovered numerous rare species in addition to others never seen before. In addition to the pit viper, they found what the report dubbed “cryptically camouflaged leaf-toed geckos” and vividly colored millipedes, which are likely quite poisonous.AdvertisementAdvertisementThe pit viper is still being formally characterized, but the report called it a “spectacular new species” with recognizable triangular heads, which are “highly venomous” an …
