No one had spotted the world’s smallest known snake for nearly two decades. Some scientists worried that maybe the Barbados threadsnake had become extinct.

The Barbados threadsnake, the world's smallest snake, has been rediscovered after vanishing for nearly two decades, sparking hope for conservation efforts. Ecologist Connor Blades' find in March 2025 shifted the snake's status from possibly extinct to critically endangered.

I was making a joke and in my head I said, ‘I smell a threadsnake,'” Justin Springer, Caribbean program officer for the NGO Re:wild, recalled. “I just had a feeling, but I couldn’t be sure because we turned over a lot of rocks before that and we saw nothing.