Eastern Small-eyed Snake

The Eastern Small-eyed Snake is a small, glossy black snake that is easy to underestimate and should not be. Its venom is myotoxic — it damages muscle tissue — and it has been responsible for a human death in Australia.

It is common through South East Queensland and is often turned up under sheet iron, logs and garden debris. Because it is small and dark, it is regularly mistaken for a juvenile Red-bellied Black Snake or a Marsh Snake.

This is a species where size is a poor guide to risk.

About the Eastern Small-eyed Snake

Adults are usually around 50 centimetres, occasionally reaching close to 1 metre. The body is slender and the head is barely distinct from the neck.

The upper surface is a uniform glossy black, often with a blue or purplish sheen in good light. The belly is cream, pink or coral red, and the colour does not extend up the flanks the way it does on a Red-bellied Black Snake.

The name is accurate and useful: the eye is genuinely small relative to the head, noticeably smaller than that of the similar-looking species it gets confused with.

Habitat

Where can you find an Eastern Small-eyed Snake?

This is a secretive, shelter-loving species found in a wide range of habitats:

• open forest and woodland
• rainforest margins
• rocky outcrops and scree
• under sheet iron, timber and rubbish piles
• gardens, sheds and around building foundations

They spend the day hidden and are most often found by people moving something — lifting a sheet of iron, shifting a woodpile, turning over pavers. That is worth knowing before you start tidying up around a shed.

Venom

Is the Eastern Small-eyed Snake dangerous?

Yes, despite its size. The venom is strongly myotoxic and can cause serious muscle damage, which in turn can affect the kidneys. A fatality has been recorded in Australia from this species.

Symptoms may be slow to develop, which adds to the danger — someone bitten by a small black snake can easily assume nothing much has happened. It has not necessarily.

Treat any bite as a medical emergency. Apply a pressure immobilisation bandage, keep the person still and call 000, regardless of how small the snake was.

Diet

What does the Eastern Small-eyed Snake eat?

This species feeds almost entirely on other reptiles:

• small skinks
• geckos
• other small lizards
• reptile eggs
• occasionally small snakes

It hunts at night, working through leaf litter and under cover where sleeping lizards can be found.

Behaviour

What should you know about this species?

Eastern Small-eyed Snakes are nocturnal and secretive, spending daylight hours under cover. They are not usually aggressive and will generally try to escape rather than confront.

The risk comes from the circumstances of most encounters. People meet this species by uncovering it unexpectedly, at close range, with bare hands already in the wrong place.

They are also known to shelter communally under good cover, so finding one does not mean there is only one.

What to do if you see an Eastern Small-eyed Snake

Put down whatever you have lifted, step back, and give it room to leave.

Do not assume a small black snake is harmless, and do not attempt to move it — this species accounts for a genuine share of serious bites precisely because it looks unthreatening.

If it needs relocating from around a house or shed, call a licensed snake catcher. When clearing sheet iron, timber or rubbish around a property, wear boots and gloves and use a rake rather than your hands.