World’s Smallest Snake Discovered on Barbados
Posted on August 3, 2008
As slim as a spaghetti noodle and able to fit snugly on a U.S. quarter, a new species of snake has been found hiding out in a forest on Barbados. The reptilian runt is now the world’s smallest snake.
Blair Hedges, an evolutionary biologist at Penn State, discovered the snake, which just under four inches (10 cm) in length as an adult, in a fragment of forest on the eastern side of Barbados.
Hedges analyzed genetic material from the snake, which along with physical characteristics such as its unique color patterns and scales, provided evidence that the snake was indeed a new species of threadsnake, now dubbed Leptotyphlops carlae.
“Snakes may be prevented by natural selection from becoming too small because, below a certain size, there may be nothing for their young to eat,” Hedges said.
The Barbados snake, like its relatives, likely feeds primarily on the larvae of ants and termites.
Like other members of the “small” club, L. carlae only produces one offspring at a time, in this case a single slender egg (some other snakes give birth to live young). In addition, its young are giants relatively speaking. In general, the hatchlings of the smallest snakes are one-half the length of an adult, while the largest snakes have hatchlings that are only one-tenth the length of an adult.
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