Excerpts from Jim Conrad's
Naturalist Newsletter

from the January 28, 2006 Newsletter issued from near Telchac Pueblo, in northwestern Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula
A VERY SMALL SNAKE

EPICTIA VINDUMI

*UPDATE: In 2015 an expert in this group of snakes at a university in the US wrote to me that he was preparing a technical paper in which he will describe the snake shown on this page as a species new to science. It currently has no name, in the past being confused with other species. It is a very narrowly endemic species in the genus Epictia, found only in the northern Yucatan, and closely related to Epictia phenops. The collected individual from which the technical or Latin description will be made -- the "type" collection" -- was collected here at Chichén Itzá. The species exists as an "island population" well separated geographically from similar species. In a year or so its name should be published, and then we hope to update this page.

*UPDATE: In 2016 our snake receives the name EPICTIA VINDUMI. It is named and published by Van Wallach in the June, 2016 issue of Mesoamerican Herpetology, Vol 3,#2.

*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. Roberto had seen this one escaping from beneath a plank on the ground, after he'd poured some water there.

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 right.

I didn't know what it was and even with my handlens it was too small to get a positive ID.

What a find!

Seeing this little critter just made my week!