Palscience

On the Carribean island of Barboados, the world’s smallest snake discovered by Dr. Blair Hedges a biologist from Penn State University in the U.S. The snaked was named Leptotyphlops carlae, and it’s the smallest of the 3,100 known snake species. It’s about 10 centimeters long “less than four inches”, and could easily curl up on a U.S quarter. “I was thrilled when I turned over that rock and found it,” Dr Hedges told BBC News.

Dr. Hedges told BBC News that it’s difficult to define a new species when the organism is so small. “Differences in small animals are much more subtle and so are frequently over-looked,” However, with the advanced technology and modern genetic fingerprinting, it is possible to tell species apart. “The great thing is that DNA is as different between two small snakes as it is between two large snakes, allowing us to see the differences that we can’t see by eye,” explained Dr Hedges.

Most of the known snakes can lay up to 100 eggs in a single clutch, but Leptotyphlops carlae, however, can only produce a single egg. “This is unusual for snakes but seems to be a feature of small animals.” Researchers believe that the Barbadian snake is as small as a snake can evolve to be. BBC News.

Via National Geographic