![]() A few of the blind snakes, including the Xenotyphlops grandidieri, are completely uncolored and look a rather sickly white. The bellies are often a lighter color than the backs. Many blind snakes have brown, dark gray, or black backs, and a few have bright patterns, such as speckles, blotches, or stripes of white, yellow, orange, or blue. They range from tails that make up less than 1/100th of the body length to tails in some species that consist of 1/10th of the overall body. The tail in a snake begins at the vent, a slitlike opening on the snake's underside. The spine is especially noticeable in Typhlops depressiceps and Acutotyphlops subocularis. The tails are usually rather short and often tipped with a single, thorny spine. A few species have little bits of flesh that stick out of the front of the snout and are used by the snake to feel its way along the dark, underground tunnels in which it lives. In some species, the snout is rounded, but in others it may flatten out toward the front, become pointed or hooked, or have some other shape. Such an arrangement of overlapping, thick scales gives the blind snakes a strong protective cover.īlind snakes have short heads, typically with small eyes covered by a see-through scale and a small mouth that opens on the underside of the snake rather than on the front of the head like most other snakes. In some other families of snakes, the scales barely overlap, if they overlap at all. The scales on their backs are thick and noticeably overlap one another. Usually, the head, body, and tail have about the same diameter, although in a few of the larger species, the back half of the animal may grow fat and become quite thick. The typical blind snake is smooth and shiny with a tube-shaped body. The largest, known as Peter's giant blind snake or the Zambezi blind snake, can top 3 feet (0.9 meters) in length and weigh 1.1 pounds (0.5 kilograms). ![]() A few species, however, can grow to more than 24 inches (61 centimeters). Adult flowerpot snakes, for example, reach only 4 to 6.5 inches (10 to 16.5 centimeters) long. Most blind snakes are small, with many species reaching less than 12 inches (31 centimeters) in length at full size. BLACKISH BLIND SNAKE ( Ramphotyphlops nigrescens): SPECIES ACCOUNT
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