I just call them cute and super cool. And friends. When I first heard of them from an old neighbor, I desperately wanted to meet one. They told me that no, they don’t bite, but I was picturing in my mind a much larger creature, like a snake snake. What neighbor-guy had called them was, “vibora ciega,” or blind snake. They have many other names in other places, but the only other name that I’ve heard used is “Cecilias.”
At some point I read about them in an “Anfibios y Reptiles,” guidebook and daydreamed about our first encounter. And then it happened. I was working as a caretaker on a small “hobby” farm. In addition to caring for two lady-horses, a mula and a burro, one sweet old chicken who had to be carried into and out of her house each day, and three dogs, I performed various mostly super freakin difficult manual labor chores.
I’d met a few Cecilias in the garden soil and compost, delighted, marvelling. One day the work was to disassemble two raised garden beds, bagging and wheelbarrowing off the soil for reuse elsewhere. During this process, I came across five small ovular eggs, which I somehow knew belonged to Cecilia babes in my gut, although I hadn’t seen photographs of them. I laid them carefully aside under a tree, where they would be safely out of the way until I could take a break.
At midday, I tried to bury them about as deeply as they had been when I found them and finished my day. As I was falling asleep, it occurred to me, that I had been watering those raised beds twice per day and that they might require that humidity level to thrive, so I got up, and dug them up once more. I recreated their original nest as well as I could, this time in a box on top of my refrigerator. After a few days of watering and putting them out in the sun, I saw a few popped open empty shells on the surface one day.
The next morning I saw one egg with a hole in it, on the surface of the soil, but with a little pinkish brown face peeping out. It was chilly and the little guy was still. Chickens after sitting for 21 days straight, sometimes seem to decide that that one last chick is just taking too long and they can’t sit any longer. Here I remember the source: In The Grass Is Singing, by Doris Lesing, she describes keeping a hatchling warm enough and helping it to complete its exit. After helping baby chickens a few times in this manner, it occurred to me, that this little snake-lizard-worm friend might just need a bit of warmth to get moving again. I picked him up and blew a few warm breaths over him and he began wriggling and pushing out.
So they are in fact, not any kind of snake or lizard either. They are what is known as amphisbeanas. Besides, "blind snakes," I've been told that they ar lizards who sort of "devolved" and lost their legs...?... They do have eyes below their skin, all but invisible on some species. And actually, one did try to sort of nibble my finger, but it seemed much more like curious tasting than aggression, and their little teeth couldn’t break my skin anyhow… it didn’t even feel like anything really. They aerate the soil and are great garden helpers, known to eat cockroaches among other insects. Different species are known to maintain their eggs in their stomachs, in their larynx or on their backs. Some feed their young bits of their own skin and one species has been discovered to create a milk-like substance for their babes. (I believe that is a species found in Brazil.) After this guy hatched in my hand a few years ago now, I started reading lots about them and asking people who work with the soil more as well. They were once thought to have two heads, one on each end.
And a quick search on wikipedia for "amphisbaena," now adds too many new dimensions to digest mentally and emotionally tonight. Apparently they have an extensive mythology and are similar or equivalent to Oroborus.
Sometimes people still have fearful misconceptions about them and will kill them. So, tell the people: they don’t bite, they have no venom, they are a boon to your garden and help keep away the cucarachas even.
Testing 3Speak Network: I made this post to try out the functionality of the website and for fun. It's been a little bit difficult, this part here. In writing the post, the cursor is jumpy moving to different places randomly. What I wound up doing is creating a word document and then pasting the text into this box. However the first time that I did that, it still did something very strange, filling the field with about fifty lines of empty space ahead of the text. Scrolling down, seeing the text was indeed pasted in, but below... I tried to delete the empty lines, which worked at first, but then the cursor jumped and began deleting text...and then it sort of froze and wouldn't do anything. I refreshed the page...found the text box empty and pasted in again...y voila. por fin. bueno. besos