Mostly you’ll hear there are no snakes in Hawaii, and it’s true that there are no native snakes, and other than the occasional illegally imported and escaped pet — usually a python or boa constrictor — there are no introduced snakes here either. Except for one very interesting species: the island blind snake.

I grew up in Hawaii, but I never saw one until a few years ago when I was digging out a new garden. I turned over a shovel-full of soil and two tiny creatures, best described as looking like earthworms on steroids, went into a wriggling frenzy.

They were island blind snakes: tiny, burrowing snakes, with vestigial eyes, “almost always under eight inches” according to A Field Guide to Reptiles and Amphibians in the Hawaiian Islands by Sean McKeown. They prefer “slightly moist soil or leaf litter” — so it amazes me that they live here in Kula, because we have suffered so many years of ongoing drought and dry soil. They’re believed to be native to the Phillipines and likely arrived here in soil around the roots of plants. They’re considered harmless.

Three more turned up today, and I took some pictures before we let the snakes go:

This photo is for scale. The white cloth is the little finger of a work glove.

This is a slightly closer view of the entire snake; the head is at the bottom.

Here's a closer look at the head (on the bottom) and the tail. Note the snake's scales.

The arrow points to what I think is the dark spot of the snake's vestigial eye.