Animal Planet, Eat Your Heart Out

I was out walking around on Sunday morning at the Cougar Ranch and I found a really weird baby snake. I had my camera with me, so I filmed it a little bit. The video isn't very great because I was a little freaked out about seeing a snake. I was deathly afraid of the snake because of its bright blue tail and everyone knows bright blue = poisonous or pretending to be poisonous, so I didn’t want to get to close. Also, the thought of getting bit by a baby snake at the Cougar Ranch brought back haunting memories of my Uncle Dale and his close encounter with the legless kind. My adrenaline was definitely pumping as I was trying to remember if I knew how to tie a tourniquet in case I was bitten by this deadly reptile. So here is the video, I added some Steve Irwin (crocodile hunter) audio to make it more exciting (so turn up your speakers):

Everyone back at the cabin was wondering what the snake could be. We went back to the scene of the crime and we couldn't find it anywhere. We decided to google it when we got home. I just happen to work across the hall from a bug/nature/reptile/snake enthusiast named Neil. He is a beekeeper and loves spiders and snakes and pretty much anything gross. I told him about the snake and he got pretty excited and told me to bring the video in and he would look at it. He said there were only 31 species of snakes in Utah, so we could figure it out. He asked me if it had legs and I said – uh, no, it was definitely a baby snake. He went back to his office and within 5 seconds sent me an email with the following picture:

It is a western skink, basically a lizard. It must have had the tiniest legs because I didn't see them at all!! I felt kind of dumb for freaking out about the snake. Ever since talking to Neil, I was dreaming about discovering a new species of snake and naming it after Kurt Cobain or something really cool like that. A girl can dream, can’t she? It was just a lizard, but a pretty cool lizard as far as lizards go.