Tetracheilostoma carlae
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Tetracheilostoma carlae |
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| ( Hedges , 2008) |
Tetracheilostoma carlae ( Syn . : Leptotyphlops carlae ) is a species of snake from the family of the slender blind snakes (Leptotyphlopidae), which isendemicto Barbados . The species was scientifically described by Blair Hedges in 2008 and named after his wife Carla Ann Hass. In addition, it became known that two unwritten museum specimens exist of this snake, which were collected in 1889 and 1963. The species is the smallest known snake in the world.
description
Adult animals have an average total length of 99.4 mm and a maximum total length of 104.0 mm, the diameter in the middle of the body is 2.51 mm on average. The live weight of the holotype was 0.6 g. The snake has 14 rows of scales in the middle of its body, the number of supralabials and infralabials is four each.
The basic color of the body is dark brown to black on top. To the side of the center of the back are two pairs of yellowish-gray longitudinal lines; The inner two lines delimit a three rows of scales wide, red-brown and slightly iridescent zone on the middle of the back. The belly and lower flank areas are pale gray-brown.
Way of life
The clutch apparently only comprises one egg, because the two pregnant females found so far had only laid one egg each. Tropical rainforests are considered the original habitat of the species, but these have been completely destroyed in Barbados. Tetracheilostoma carlae lives there today in secondary forests, but even these only cover a few square kilometers in the area of the site. Otherwise nothing is known about the ecology. Slender blind snakes generally burrow underground and feed on termites and ants and their larvae; A similar way of life can therefore also be assumed for Tetracheilostoma carlae .
literature
S. Blair Hedges: At the lower size limit in snakes: two new species of threadsnakes (Squamata: Leptotyphlopidae: Leptotyphlops) from the Lesser Antilles . Zootaxa 1841, 2008, pp. 1–30 ISSN 1175-5334 , (online, pdf; 389 kB)
