Hawaii Tribune-Herald: Want to win a wager?

Thursday, Jul 29, 2004

Want to win a wager?

By DAVE SMITH
If any animal was ever in need of a good public relations firm, it would be the snake.

In the Bible's account of the Garden of Eden, the devil appears as a serpent. Just being called a snake shows how low someone has fallen. And then there are the metaphors: snake in the grass, snake-oil salesman.

In Hawaii, mention of the reptile brings up images of invasions of brown tree snakes from Guam or exotic, forbidden house pets that bring potentially huge fines.

But one scaly species that couldn't be more benign is common throughout Hawaii.

The Hawaiian blind snake lives mostly in soil or accompanying leaf litter.

Except for the one Loretta Kawaiaea found in her house near the Hilo Municipal Golf Course.

Kawaiaea said her daughter found the critter crawling on the carpet not far from the front door of her Iwalani Street home.

Its "S"-like gyrations was the tip-off that the shiny, black creature was not the earthworm it resembles at first glance, Kawaiaea said.

Earlier this week she took it to state agriculture officials who confirmed it was a blind snake.

Kawaiaea, 73, said she had heard of blind snakes but had never seen one.

"It was amazing to me," she said.

Typically 3 to 4 inches in length, Ramphotyphlops braminus is a true snake that is found across the Pacific and elsewhere.

So much elsewhere that they may be the most common species of reptile in the world, said zoologist Allen Allison, vice president of science at Honolulu's Bishop Museum.

He said they were first noticed in Hawaii in the 1930s on the grounds of Kamehameha Schools on Oahu.

Like their shrieking cousin the coqui frog, they typically are spread from one area to another in potted plants. Unlike the coqui, they are not considered a threat to native ecosystems.

Since they spend so much time underground their eyes have devolved into just barely visible remnants. Harmless to humans, they feed on small insects such as termites and ants.

All blind snakes are female which means they can breed without males.

"Basically one is the clone of another," Allison said.

In the dry weather that Hilo is currently (and rarely) experiencing, he said they can be found huddling under pieces of wood.

Kevin Horiuchi, a Hilo plant quarantine inspector for the state Department of Agriculture, said he sees several of the snakes each year when people bring them in for identification.

That makes them somewhat better-known than another of the islands' obscurities, the Hawaiian tree shrimp.

But that's another story.

Dave Smith can be reached at dsmith@hawaiitribune-herald.com

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