The half-meter long snake, known locally as a "mud snake", was collected by a WWF consultant and a German reptile expert in the wetlands along the Kapuas River in West Kalimantan more than a year ago.

"It has since been established that it is really a new species," the WWF's Iwan Wibisono told AFP.

"The peculiar thing with this snake, is that it can change colour... That is relatively rare among snakes," he told AFP.

The feat, which some reptiles have mastered in order to evade predators, was discovered when the reptile experts put the reddish-brown snake into a pail and it turned white, he said.

He noted that the ability to morph colours was typically a defence mechanism among reptiles.

"But since the mud snake is poisonous, what purpose does the colour-changing ability serve?" Wibisono asked. Scientists are speculating that its camouflaging ability was linked instead to allowing it to catch food, he added.

The WWF and environmentalists have warned that rapid deforestation on Borneo, where vast tracts of rainforest still remain, threatens to destroy chances of discovering more undiscovered species harboured there.

Indonesia is losing at least 2.8 million hectares of its forests every year to illegal logging alone.

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