Saw my first UAE snake

Yesterday I was in Dubai for the day for a meeting on e-Assessment. Not very exciting for me for the most part, although one speaker who was video fed in from near Leeds in the UK was fascinating and had interesting things to say. Regardless, it was late by the time I got back to the office, around 4:50 and of course everyone had gone home. I stopped in my office to put away my stuff and to check my email and turn off the office lights.
I opened the door to one of the student study rooms and noticed a very long thin thread on the floor. I thought it looked like a really long string from someone's blouse or shirt. But then it started moving. I looked very closely (without getting anywhere near it) and it was most definitely a snake. It was pink, almost red, in color, and about as long as my arm if not a little longer. It was at least as thin as the inner part of a pen (but not as thick as a pencil... really thin). I watched it move and it wasn't moving like a worm (they move with that segment contraction) it was moving like a snake. I use to have a garden snake (green racer) so I know a snake when I see one.
Very exciting. Now, not being familiar with snakes of this part of the world I didn't get anywhere near it. You might be thinking, come on, it's just a thread snake, why didn't you capture it or something, but let me tell you why.
Last year at about this time of year at the RAK Sailing Club, the commodore of the club opened a cupboard and disturbed a snake. He was bit. He was rushed to the hospital. They weren't entirely sure what kind of snake had bit him. They gave him the wrong anti-venom. Then they got the right anti-venom, but he was on deaths door for about three weeks. The whole incident ended up with him hospitalized for nearly 6 months and it was a horrifying experience for everyone involved. The sailing club has barely recovered. One of the biggest problems was that they didn't know what kind of snake had bit him.
My thought is, better safe than sorry. So I called in security and had them remove the snake. It took 10 men to get the snake out of the room. Most of them were far more freaked out by it than I was. Mostly I just wanted to know what kind of snake it was. So I did my research and looked at pictures and found it.

It is a Leptotyphlopidea of some kind, which according to some experts should only grow to about 15 cm. That is only about 6 inches. This snake was exactly the same shape, width, color, and movement type, but it was easily as long as my arm. It wasn't just 6 inches long. It was easily 12-15 inches.

But then I saw this article from the Dubai newspaper...

"'We spotted the thread snake under a stone in the civic body's special conservation area in the Bab Al Shams deserts. The non-venomous snake, which looked much more like an earthworm, had a length of 40 centimetres with just the thickness of a lady's hairpin,' he explained.
The slender thread snakes, known in its scientific name, Leptotyphlopidae, are featured with smooth and shiny scales. Members of this family look much like blind snakes, and all of them have tube-shaped bodies that are about the same diameter from head to tail. The snakes have short heads with mouths that open downward instead of right on the front end of the head. "

Yup, that is the snake alright. So it is a non-venomous type of blind snake.

Kind of cool.

Everyone is doing fine. I am just excited about my first UAE snake. Plus today is the second time it has rained in 340 days. Have a great day.