A YUCATAN DWARF
CENTIPEDE-EATER

Having the gardeners Roberto and Francisco calling me whenever they turn up an interesting critter has been wonderful. While they machete weeds and dig up new beds for flowers they stumble across amazing organisms every day. This Wednesday they grinningly called me over to check out what they'd demobilized beneath a cup.

It was the smallest snake I'd ever seen, even smaller than snakes I've seen just emerged from their eggs, and it's shown at the rightl.

It was a Yucatan Dwarf Centipede-eater, TANTILLITA CANULA. Adults of this species grow to only about 7 inches (18 cm) and this one was a juvenile 3 inches long (7.5 cm). Using my hand lens I could hardly see the eye and mouth but finally I managed to confirm its distinguishing features -- 15 dorsal scale rows, 6 or 7 infralabial scales, divided anal plate, and other such esoterica. Among snakes, scales aren't randomly scattered. They are arrayed in specific and distinctive ways, and many scales, especially those around the face, have their own names. Snake identification is often a matter of counting scales and verifying their relative positions.

What a find! The species is distributed only from lowland northern Guatemala north through the Yucatan Peninsula, and it does eat centipedes and other small invertebrates, though this young one was smaller than most centipedes I've seen. It's so secretive that usually you never see one unless you blunder upon it. Typically they're beneath logs and rocks along the edges of clearings. Roberto saw this one escaping from beneath a plank on the ground, after he'd poured some water there.

Seeing this little critter just made my week!