Science News - World's smallest snake is as thin as spaghetti

WASHINGTON - Scientists have identified the world's smallest snake -- a reptile about 4 inches long and as thin as spaghetti that was found lurking under a rock on the Caribbean island of Barbados.
The new species, named Leptotyphlops carlae, is smaller than any of the other 3,100 previously known snake species, according to Pennsylvania State University biologist Blair Hedges, who also had helped find the world's smallest frog and lizard.
It is one of about 300 different species of threadsnake and is a dark brownish gray with two yellow stripes, Hedges said. It was determined to be a newly identified species due to genetic differences from other snakes and its unique color pattern and scales, he said.
The snake, which is not venomous, eats termites and termite larvae but little is known about its behavior, including whether it is nocturnal, Hedges said. It was found in 2006 in a forest on the eastern side of Barbados.
"It was under a rock. We got two of them," Hedges said in a phone interview. "It's about as wide as a spaghetti noodle."
The snake is about 0.2 inches (5 mm) shorter than another species from the Caribbean island of Martinique. "When you get down that small, every millimeter counts," said Hedges, whose findings were published in the scientific journal Zootaxa on Sunday. The biggest and smallest types of animals often are found living on islands where species over time can fill ecological niches in habitats without competition from other creatures not living in the isolated locations.
The world's longest snake is the reticulated python, which grows to 33 feet long and lives in Southeast Asia. Snakes have lived since the time of the dinosaurs. The oldest known fossil snakes date from around 100 million years ago. The first snakes -- thought to have evolved from lizards -- actually had very small limbs. Hedges thinks the new one may be at or near the minimum possible size for snakes. It lays a single slender egg that takes up a major part of the mother snake's body, he said.

Barbadians slam snake 'discovery' as old news

Story Highlights
Locals say they have seen smallest snake long before scientist's announcement

Scientist: First person to fully describe species is considered one who discovered it

Locals slam scientist for naming the snake after his wife

Corrie: Scientist makes it look like locals don't know what's in their backyard
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SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) -- A small snake has sparked a big debate in Barbados.

Residents of the wealthy Caribbean nation have been heating up blogs and clogging radio airwaves to vent their anger at a U.S. scientist, who earlier this week announced his "discovery" of the world's smallest snake and named it "Leptotyphlops carlae," after his wife Carla.

"If he needs to blow his own trumpet ... well, fine," said 43-year-old Barbadian Charles Atkins. "But my mother, who was a simple housewife, she showed me the snake when I was a child."

One writer to the Barbados Free Press blog took an even tougher tone, questioning how someone could "discover" a snake long known to locals, who called it the thread snake.

"How dare this man come in here and name a snake after his wife?" said the writer who identified themselves as Margaret Knight.

The man she refers to is Penn State University evolutionary biologist S. Blair Hedges, whose research teams also have discovered the world's tiniest lizard in the Dominican Republic and the smallest frog in Cuba.

Hedges recently became the first to describe the snake -- which is so small it can curl up on a U.S. quarter -- when he published his observations and genetic test results in the journal "Zootaxa." Full-grown adults typically are less than 4 inches long.

Hedges told The Associated Press on Friday that he understands Barbadians' angry reactions, but under established scientific practice, the first person to do a full description of a species is said to have discovered it and gives it a scientific name.

He said most newly "discovered" species are already well known to locals, and the term refers to the work done in a laboratory to establish a genetic profile. In the study, he reported that two specimens he analyzed were found in 1889 and 1963.

"There are no false claims here, believe me," Hedges said.

Damon Corrie, president of the Caribbean Herpetological Society, acknowledged that Hedges is the first to scientifically examine and describe the snake, but the so-called discovery makes locals seem ignorant.

"It gives the impression that people here ... depend on people from abroad to come and show us things in our own backyard," Corrie said.

Karl Watson, a historian and ornithologist at the University of the West Indies in Barbados, said it's common for people to get excited over very tiny or very large animals.

"Probably people have overreacted. ... It's nationalism going a bit awry," Watson said.

Hedges agreed: "I think they're carrying it a bit too far."

"Snakes are really apolitical," he said.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/science...ake/index.html

Clearing air on small snake
Published on: 8/29/08.


MY RESEARCH on the Barbados Threadsnake was discussed in an article by Bryan Walker on August 8.

I understand the reaction of Barbadians to the news reports, when the snake was known already on the island. But this is true of almost any new species of reptile – they are known by local residents.

The news reports were not clear, and caused much of this confusion. The thing that was discovered was not the presence of the snake on Barbados, but that it is an endemic species known nowhere else – this was new. The research article can be obtained freely at: www.mapress.com/zootaxa/2008/f/zt01841p030.pdf

Before, that snake was considered the same species as the one on Martinique and St Lucia, and therefore not so special. The discovery was made by sequencing its DNA and by studying it carefully in a laboratory.

News reports failed to mention that I named the snake the "Barbados Threadsnake" in my scientific article. The scientific name – which people rarely use – was dedicated to my wife who helped with the research. This is a normal practice in the field of science called taxonomy, to dedicate a scientific name after someone.

What about the size? Wasn't it already the smallest? Because the species was confused, scientifically, the size was also confused. As it turns out, perhaps by chance, the new species defined on Barbados is even smaller than the one it was confused with previously, on Martinique.

Now, Barbados has a unique species, the Barbados Threadsnake, and one that is quite special because it is the smallest, unless someone finds a large specimen of it, or a smaller species elsewhere. It should be studied and protected.

In THE NATION article, Damon Corrie is quoted as saying that he showed me where to find the Threadsnake. That is not exactly true. He accompanied us on one day but there were no snakes at his places. The snakes came from a place that I found in the old literature, although he was present when one was collected and we enjoyed his company.

Finally, I must point out that there is a second very small snake on Barbados that is easy to confuse with the real Barbados Threadsnake. It is called the Flowerpot Blindsnake and is thin and black; it was introduced from Indonesia and is common in gardens and around houses (Bridgetown, and so on).

Most sightings of the "threadsnake" are probably of this different species.

– BLAIR HEDGES

State College, Pennsylvania.

http://www.nationnews.com/editorial/305207303509724.php