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.

For nearly two decades, no one had spotted the world’s smallest-known snake.

Some scientists worried that maybe the Barbados threadsnake had become extinct, but one sunny morning, Connor Blades lifted a rock in a tiny forest in the eastern Caribbean island and held his breath.

“After a year of searching, you begin to get a little pessimistic,” said Blades, project officer with the Ministry of Environment in Barbados.

The snake can fit comfortably on a coin, so it was able to elude scientists for almost 20 years. Too tiny to identify with the naked eye, Blades placed it in a small glass jar and added soil, substrate and leaf litter.