The world's smallest snake: Thin as a strand of spaghetti and small enough to fit on a 10p coin By David Derbyshire Last updated at 8:09 AM on 04th August 2008
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It is as thin as a strand of spaghetti, small enough to fit on a 10p piece, and its bite is harmless. Introducing the smallest, and least scary, snake in the world.The 4in long Leptotyphlops carlae was discovered in a patch of forest on Barbados.
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The snake is as thin as a spaghetti noodle and is seen resting on a U.S. quarter and is so slender that it could slide through a pencil if the lead were removed. It is so slender that it could slide through a pencil if the lead were removed. The scientist who found it believes it is as small as a snake can be. '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,' said Dr Blair Hedges, an evolutionary biologist at Pennsylvania State University. His discovery is a thread snake - a group of reptiles sometimes called worm snakes or slender blind snakes. They have very thin bodies and usually look like earthworms. It lives on the eastern side of Barbados in St Joseph Parish. It is covered in smooth, brown-grey shiny scales with faint yellow stripes.Like all thread snakes its eyes are almost too small to use and it relies on a sense of smell, using its tongue to 'taste' the air. Existing on a diet of ant and termite larvae, it spends most of the day underground but comes to the surface when it rains. Dr Hedges has discovered 72 species of reptile and amphibian - including the smallest frog and the smallest lizard. He has also discovered five species of butterfly. He named the latest find - made in June 2006 during a field survey of wildlife - after his wife Carla. DNA tests and its unique markings show that it is distinct from other thread snakes - and the 3,100 known snake species, he reports in the journal Zootaxa. The longest snake ever caught was a 33ft python shot in Indonesia in 1912. The smallest and largest animals tend to be found on islands, where species can evolve over time to fill niches in habitats unoccupied by rivals.
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