PRESS OF ATLANTIC CITY (New Jersey) 21 October 08 Hard-to-spot worm snake is strange, harmless little creature (Kevin Post)
Look, down on the ground ... is it a worm? Is it a snake? No, it's ... a worm snake.
I've only had that particular moment of wonder once, years ago walking in the woods on a damp day in Monmouth County.
The snakes we notice - like the two we saw while camping in northern New Jersey last week - tend to be big and draw our attention as they slither away.
But the worm snake is only 8 to 13 inches long, slender and rarely seen under the leaf litter on the ground. When it's beneath a rock, in a rotting log or underground, forget it.
Steve Eisenhauer, who gets to spend a lot of time afield as regional director of stewardship and protection for the Natural Lands Trust and its Peek Preserve in Millville, rarely sees them.
He found one dead in a field, he said last week, and recently he found one alive under a tire.
"They're a really strange creature. It looks like a little worm with a mouth at the end," Eisenhauer said.
"Worm" is not only the look of this snake, it is also its main food. On its underground hunting trips, it eats little besides earthworms, just the occasional insect grub, caterpillar, slug or snail.
Most snakes are pretty harmless, and this one is especially so. It probably couldn't bite a person if it wanted to.
It does have one unusual, minor weapon - a hard pointed tail that it uses to pierce the ground. If it's annoyed with being held, it might give a poke with this to encourage its release. But it's more likely to release a foul odor from an anal gland.
The worm snake is among the reptiles that have developed a way to make the most out of their infrequent mating encounters.
Females mating in the fall will store the sperm until spring, when they will use it to fertilize several eggs. Or they'll mate in the spring with no need for overwinter storage.
Eisenhauer said the worm snake is not a protected species.
But he has never heard of anyone taking an inventory of the hard-to-find snake, so its status is probably more unknown than unthreatened.
As for so many creatures, it is the protection or destruction of its natural habitat - mainly deciduous forest for the worm snake - that is the key to its survival.
Hard-to-spot worm snake is strange, harmless little creature