Barbados: Worlds Smallest Snake Discovered

[Karl]

From: Live Science – August 03, 2008

A new species of snake has been found in a Barbados forest. This is now the world's smallest snake. Blair Hedges, a US-based evolutionary biologist, found the snake, which is 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 other threadsnakes, is likely to feed primarily on the larvae of ants and termites.



Read Full Article: World's Smallest Snake Discovered on Barbados | LiveScience

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Saw about that the other day. Pretty amazing stuff. I wonder how many other species like this are out there that we don't know about.