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The Barbados threadsnake (Photo by Connor Blades)<\/p>\n The Barbados threadsnake (Photo by Connor Blades)<\/p>\n
The world\u2019s smallest snake was rediscovered under a rock in central Barbados during an ecological survey in March.<\/p>\n
The Barbados threadsnake (Tetracheilostoma carlae) had been lost to science for nearly 20 years\u2014meaning it had not had a sighting verified and documented by a scientist\u2014and was on a global list of 4,800 plant, animal, and fungi species lost to science compiled by Re:wild<\/a>\u2019s Search for Lost Species.<\/p>\n At the limit of how small a snake can be, the species measures only about 3 to 4 inches long (9 to 10 centimeters) when fully grown. Each confirmed sighting of the species has had several decades between them, leading scientists to believe that the snake has possibly always been rare and difficult to find in the wild.<\/p>\n The Barbados Ministry of the Environment and Beautification had been searching for the threadsnake and several other endemic reptiles for more than a year as part of the Conserving Barbados\u2019 Endemic Reptiles (CBER) project.<\/p>\n \u201cBarbados threadsnakes are blind snakes, so they\u2019re very cryptic,\u201d said<\/a> Connor Blades, a project officer with the ministry, who helped rediscover the animal and photograph it.<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re quite rare also, it seems. There have only been a handful of confirmed sightings since 1889, so there are not many people who have ever seen it, unfortunately.\u201d<\/p>\n The threadsnake closely resembles the Brahminy blind snake, or flowerpot snake, a small invasive snake species that was inadvertently introduced to Barbados in recent decades.<\/p>\n \u201cI began to look over the snake and it was clear to me that I really needed to take it to a microscope to get a proper look at it,\u201d said Blades. \u201cThe morphological differences between the threadsnake and blind snake are really difficult to tell by eye, particularly because it was the first threadsnake we had seen, so we weren\u2019t familiar with the species yet.\u201d<\/p>\n Justin Springer, Caribbean program officer for Re:wild, supported Blades\u2019 search effort. They began by looking under rocks, one of which caught their attention.<\/p>\n \u201cI was making a joke and in my head I said, \u2018I smell a threadsnake,\u2019\u201d said Springer. \u201cI just had a feeling, but I couldn\u2019t be sure because we turned over a lot of rocks before that and we saw nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n Blades loosened the rock from under the tree root and pulled it up. Underneath the rock was an earthworm and a tiny snake. Springer quickly picked up the snake to take a closer look.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen you are so accustomed to looking for things and you don\u2019t see them, you are shocked when you actually find it,\u201d said Springer. \u201cYou can\u2019t believe it. That\u2019s how I felt. You don\u2019t want to get your hopes up too high.\u201d<\/p>\n