General Description: A small, grayish, worm-like snake with a blunt head, blunt tail, no neck, and tiny eye spots (not true eyes).

Taxonomy: Family Leptotyphlopidae: Slender Blind Snakes. Formerly Leptotyphlops humilis.

Technical Description: A small, gray, worm-like snake with a blunt head, blunt tail, no neck, and tiny eyes. Tail tip with tiny spine. Scales shiny, cycloid. Ventral scales not enlarged.

Diet: Ants, termites, and other small invertebrates. Crawls into ant nest to eat ant eggs and pupae.

Habitat: Rocky crevices and loose soil. Desert floor and brush-covered hillsides with soil for burrowing. Moist areas.

Range: Southern Nevada (Mojave Desert), southern California, southern Arizona east into the Rio Grande region (Texas), south into northern Mexico.

Breeding: 2-6 eggs laid during summer.

Similar Species: No other snake in southern Nevada is small, grayish, and worm-like with tiny "eyes."

Comments: Photos courtesy of Reptiles of Arizona. When handled, these tiny snakes ball up or writhe around madly, all the while excreting a huge amount of very stinky musk. This species probably is more common than we think based on capture records.