A small snake has sparked a big debate in Barbados.  Residents of the wealthy Caribbean nation have been erupted over Penn State University evolutionary biologist S. Blair Hedges’, naming his “newly discovered” smallest snake in the world “Leptotyphlops carlae,” after his wife Carla.

The world's smallest snake.

“If he needs to blow his own trumpet … well, fine,” said 43-year-old Barbadian Charles Atkins. “But my mother, who was a simple housewife, she showed me the snake when I was a child.”  One writer to the Barbados Free Press blog took an even tougher tone, “How can someone ‘discover’ a snake long known to locals, who called it the thread snake.”

Hedges recently became the first to describe the snake — which is so small it can curl up on a U.S. quarter — and published his observations and genetic test results.  Full-grown adults typically are less than 4 inches long.  Hedges says that he understands Barbadians’ angry reactions, but under established scientific practice, the first person to do a full description of a species is said to have discovered it and gives it the scientific name.  He said most newly “discovered” species are already well known to locals, and the term refers to the work done in a laboratory to establish a genetic profile.  In the study, he did in fact report that two specimens he analyzed were found in 1889 and 1963.

Damon Corrie, president of the Caribbean Herpetological Society, acknowledged that Hedges is the first to scientifically examine and describe the snake, but the discovery makes locals seem ignorant.

I wonder what the snake thinks about all of this.  Honestly, if the guy wants to name it after his wife, then fine.  I think it is a fitter tribute than a spider named after Stephen Colbert.