Spaghetti-Thin Snake Is World's Smallest

Aug. 4, 2008 -- A snake that's as thin as a spaghetti noodle with a body small enough to rest comfortably on a U.S. quarter has just been identified as the world's smallest snake, according to a paper published today in the journal Zootaxa .

The newly identified species, Leptotyphlops carlae, measures just 3.9 inches long and was found under a rock on the western Atlantic island of Barbados. Two other extremely small snakes, L. bilineatus from Martinique and L. breuili from Saint Lucia, were identified nearby, suggesting that the world's three smallest snakes are all Caribbean threadsnakes.

Blair Hedges, who made the finds, told Discovery News that "determining the smallest (snake) is not simple."

Hedges, an evolutionary biologist at Penn State University, previously identified the world's smallest frog and lizard on Caribbean islands. He explained that the process of naming the smallest requires measuring adult individuals -- ideally at least one male and one female -- and then comparing the average size to all other known species.

He determined the Barbados threadsnake is the smallest of more than 3,100 known snakes. The snake may even be as miniscule as nature could go for snakes since, if it were any smaller, he believes its young would have nothing to eat. As it stands, Hedges thinks it primarily consumes the tiny larvae of termites and ants.

Females of this smallest species produce just one slender egg. In contrast to larger species that may lay up to 100 eggs in a single clutch, with each egg measuring just a fraction of the mother's body, this snake produces a single hatchling that is half its mother's size.

"The fact that tiny snakes produce only one massive egg -- relative to the size of the mother -- suggests that natural selection is trying to keep the size of hatchlings above a critical limit in order to survive," he explained.

Hedges added that, because of the snake's small size, "almost anything could be a predator, including centipedes and spiders."

Already the species appears to be in grave danger.