Since then, the blind snakes on Madagascar have changed enough to give rise to a whole new family, added Penn State biologist Blair Hedges, the study's other co-leader. Now considered part of Africa, Madagascar split from what's now India about 94 million years ago. "Continental drift had a huge impact on blind snake evolution by separating populations from each other as continents moved apart," said study co-leader Nicolas Vidal, of the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle in Paris. Unlike worms, though, blind snakes have backbones and tiny scales. Growing to about a foot (30 centimeters) long, blind snakes act a lot like worms, burrowing under the surface of every continent except Antarctica. The discovery is helping to decode how these rarely seen-and barely seeing, though not completely blind-snakes came to colonize much of the planet. The genes of a newfound snake family suggest blind snakes lived on the island of Madagascar since, well, before it was an island.
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