#TriggerWarning: If you are plagued by herpetophobia or ophidiophobia, this post is not for you…Please keep scrolling.
To re-emphasize, if the very thought of a reptile or snake, (leave alone a pic of it, far from an actual sighting of one), is bound to leave you anxiety ridden, steer clear from this post.
The hibiscus flower was high up on the branch, at least 15 feet above ground. I spotted it from the first floor’s balcony and zoomed in from around 20 feet away and clicked.
It was a day later that I downloaded the pics and happened to notice what I believed to be an anomaly. Something lurking behind the slender style, amidst the petals.
Were those appendages? Could they be an insect’s muscled legs bent at an impossible angle? Grasshopper perhaps or a dragon fly’s thick tail?
I risked a closer glance at the screen in full zoom, and other possibilities rushed through me.
Tiny bird?
Wasp?
Bee?
Young skink?
Maybe I was getting carried away here. Could be just a stray distorted petal, tricking me.
Dried twig, leaf?
And another thought, almost errant, waltzed its way to the forefront of my thoughts.
The coloring, the texture, the shape, the segmented length, hood-like extension behind the antler, as best as I could construe, (having fixedly stared at the pixels in full zoom for a while now), pointed towards another likelihood.
Could it be?
Could it be?
Hope not! But voice it, I must, to move forward.
Worm. It is a worm!!! Creepy, crawly worm, eewww!!
But the niggling voice continues to poke and prod at my attempts to dismiss it.
I shall let the voice be read and be done with it…And on that note, I allow myself to type it out.
A teeny-weeny snake… A grown but miniature variety or a baby reptile. Respectful eewww!!
There! I have said it!
The gurgling tormenting thought is out.
Is it lying there, twisting itself into impossible tangles digesting the pollinator bee or some other poor being it had gulped?
Instead, could it be a pollen eating snake, savoring the sweetness and shyly retreating behind the flower style after having picked up on the vibrations and sensing the presence of a human.
I googled. And googled. For a tiny snake that could creep into a flower…
And learned about a tiny snake that indeed in known to dwell even in urban gardens and could be mistaken for a worm. A devourer of termites, ants and other little creatures. The Flowerpot snake with the aliases: Brahminy blind snake, Common blind snake and Bootlace snake.
Scientific name: Indotyphlops braminus. Harmless little creature, assure the sites online.
But it is supposedly smooth and non-segmented, considering the one in question, spotted inside the flower, sports what appear like segments.
I am sure there are other reptilian varieties similar to this, but with a segmented body.
An involuntary jolt of reality shoots through me and my thoughts crash land.
The identity of whatever it was, surely warranted a definitive reveal, if I was to relax.
Wish I had been intuitive enough to download the pics right after I had clicked, then I could have captured more details and even solved this mystery.
But anyway, here I was, a day later, letting questions raise a storm in my mind, diverting me from other day-to-day matters.
So, I did what best can be done in this instance.
Off I scooted, clicked another pic of the same flower.
With hardly contained excitement I download the pic and zoomed into the flower, which was already wilting and kind of droopy now.
And… Zilch! Nada! Nothing!
No sign of the endless-thoughts-inducing oddity in this capture.
At least one probability ruled out, as in, it being a part of the flower, a naturally occurred anomaly.
Now, that leaves the rest of possibilities churning…
So, what do you think it is?
What can it be?
I have shared both the pics, taken a day apart.
A.R Sara 