Leptotyphlops humilis

Leptotyphlops humilis
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Subphylum: Vertebrata
Class: Reptilia
Order: Squamata
Suborder: Serpentes
Family: Leptotyphlopidae
Genus: Leptotyphlops
Species: L. humilis
Binomial name
Leptotyphlops humilis
(Baird & Girard, 1853)
Synonyms
  • Rena humilis - Baird & Girard, 1853
  • Stenostoma humile - Cope, 1875
  • Rena humilis - Cope, 1887
  • Glauconia humilis - Boulenger, 1893
  • Siagonodon humilis - Van Denburgh, 1897
  • Leptotyphlops humilis - Ruthven, 1907
  • L[eptotyphlops]. h[umilis]. humilis - Klauber, 1931
  • Leptotyphlops humilis humilis - H.M. Smith & Taylor, 1945
  • Leptotyphlops chumilis - Rhodes, 1966[1]
Common names: western slender blind snake, western threadsnake,[2] more.

Leptotyphlops humilis is a blind snake species found in the southwestern United States and northern Mexico. Nine subspecies are currently recognized, including the nominate subspecies described here.[2]

Contents

Description

This species, like many of the others in this family, resembles a long earthworm. It lives underground in burrows, and since it has no use for vision, its eyes are mostly vestigial. The western blind snake is pink, purple, or silvery-brown in color, shiny, wormlike, cylindrical and blunt at both ends, and has light-detecting black eyespots. The snake's skull is thick to permit burrowing, and it has a spine at the end of its tail that it uses for leverage. It is usually less than 30 cm (12 in) in length, and is as thin as an earthworm. This species and other blind snakes are fluorescent under low frequency ultraviolet light (black light).[3]

Common names

Western slender blind snake, western threadsnake,[2] western blind snake.

Geographic range

Found in the southwestern United States and northern Mexico. In the US it ranges from southwestern and Trans-Pecos Texas west through southern and central Arizona, southern Nevada, southwestern Utah and southern California. In Mexico its distribution includes Baja California, Sonora, Sinaloa, Nayarit, Jalisco, Colima, Chihuahua, Durango, Coahuila, Tamaulipas and San Luis Potosí. The type locality given is "Valliecitas, Cal." The type locality was restricted by Kaluber (1931) to "vicinity of Vallecito, eastern San Diego County, California," and by Brattstrom (1953) to "the Uppers Sonoran Life Zone of the Vallecito area."[1]

Habitat

The snake lives underground, sometimes as deep as 20 metres (66 ft), and is known to invade ant and termite nests. Its diet is made up mostly of insects and their larvae and eggs. It is found in deserts and scrub where the soil is loose enough to work.

Subspecies

Subspecies[2] Authority[2] Common name[2] Geographic range
L. h. boettgeri (Werner, 1899)
L. h. cahuilae Klauber, 1931 Desert blind snake
L. h. dugesii (Bocourt, 1881)
L. h. humilis (Baird & Girard, 1853) Southwestern blind snake
L. h. levitoni Murphy, 1975
L. h. lindsayi Murphy, 1975
L. h. segregus Klauber, 1939 Trans-Pecos blind snake
L. h. tenuiculus (Garman, 1884)
L. h. utahensis Tanner, 1938 Utah blind snake

See also

References

  1. ^ a b McDiarmid RW, Campbell JA, Touré T. 1999. Snake Species of the World: A Taxonomic and Geographic Reference, vol. 1. Herpetologists' League. 511 pp. ISBN 1-893777-00-6 (series). ISBN 1-893777-01-4 (volume).
  2. ^ a b c d e f "Leptotyphlops humilis". Integrated Taxonomic Information System. http://www.itis.gov/servlet/SingleRpt/SingleRpt?search_topic=TSN&search_value=174337. Retrieved 30 August 2007. 
  3. ^ Arthur C. Hulse 1971. Fluoresence in Leptotyphlops humilis (Serpentes: Leptotyphlopidae). The Southwestern Naturalist. 16(1):123-124 doi:10.2307/3670106

External links