51�Թ�

Animals at risk include tapirs and pangolins, which have ancient lineages and have changed little over time; and fascinating little-known reptiles, from legless lizards to tiny blind snakes.

“Have just described five new forms of blind snakes from the island,” he wrote to S. Dillon Ripley, a young ornithologist who served with him and would later lead the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC.

There is a blind snake with the appearances and, in some respects, habits of earthworms; but this blind snake does not tend, as far as we can see, to replace and drive out worms.