One terrestrial snake in Hawai'i

[Les C]

This is actually in response to a post by Jeff Hale in the general PunaWeb forum on another topic. He mentions finding a snake in his lot. There is one terrestrial snake in the Islands, probably introduced in a similar manner to the Coqui, in potting soil supposedly from the Philippines. It's the Brahminy Blind Snake, Ramphotyphlops braminus. It looks like a worm.
http://www.jcu.edu.au/school/tbiol/zoolo...akes.shtml

http://ecologyasia.com/verts/snakes/brah..._snake.htm

It's supposedly the world's only parthenogenic snake, in which the female can lay unfertile eggs that will hatch female clones. So, it can populate an area if only a female is present. I don't know if they have any impact on the Hawaiian environment.

[Hotzcatz]

The ones I've seen have been more bluish colored than the photos they had online. Looks a lot the size and shape of a large worm but has a shiner scaly kinda blue color. They don't seem real common, at least I don't find them very often at all. They don't seem very dangerous since they are very slow moving.

I don't think they are poisonous and even if they were, they would be like the daddy-long-legs spider which - while venomous - doesn't have a mouth big enough to bite anyone.

[lotus]

I thought there weren't any snakes in Hawaii... Hope this doesn't mean disaster for the island's delicate ecosystem

[Les C]

This snake is apparently so innocuous that it's is rarely mentioned. I do recall hearing about them (but never seeing one) while growing up in the Islands in the 50's-60's. They are not poisonous, they are blind, and they are all female!

The Brown Tree Snake, an arboreal species that wiped out all of the native birds of Guam, is the one that is expected to be a serious problem if it ever gets established here.

Edited by - Les C on 07/30/2007 21:51:06