Burrowing Snake
Threads - Burrowing Snake
On 28/3/2003, Gerald Cairnes posted:
I was cleaning up a pile of old newspapers (we don't even buy them) that
got wet after a plumbing leak. Under the pile I found what looked like a
very small worm but with my intense interest in lowly creatures I suspected
this was no worm. It turned out to be a small burrowing snake uniformly dark
brown in colour with the customary eye spots and tail spike.
This snake is about 91 mm long and 1.69 mm in diameter and with my optics
bloody difficult to photograph.
It is probably a juvenile of some species maybe Typhlops but there is no
way I can get sufficient resolution to describe it in detail.
It demonstrated what appears to be a visual acuity which is more than a simple
light/dark response. Placed in a clear plastic container after it was unable
to climb out it retreated to the centre raised about 25% of its length of
the bottom and appeared to be gazing at the top edge of the container then
it made its way back to the side and attempted to climb once again. If it
does have this level of visual acuity it would be remarkable for such tiny
eyes.
The snake has been tentatively identified courtesy of the Qld Museum as Ramphotyphlops
wiedii. It has a full length of around 200 mm and reputedly very common in
South East Queensland. Apparently they are very hard to identify because
of the very small size and this is really microscopic work checking scalation.
I am happy to say it is now happily hunting in its own domain again.
