#anguidae

Green Arboreal Alligator Lizard or Mexican Alligator Lizard (Abronia graminea), family Anguidae, endemic to the Sierra Madre de Oaxaca highlands of Mexico

ENDANGERED.

The sheltopusik is all lizard and no leg! Also known as the European glass lizard, this species is the largest known legless lizard; adults can reach up to 135 cm (4.43 ft)! Despite being known as a legless lizard, sheltopusik lizards to have a pair of hind legs. However, they are functionally useless, appearing as 2mm nubs near the cloaca.

An Oaxacan arboreal alligator lizard (Abronia oaxacae) in Sierra Juárez, Oaxaca, Mexico

This eastern glass lizard (Ophisaurus ventralis) is not a snake, but part of an unrelated group of legless lizards- you can tell because it has eyelids and external ear openings. They also aren‘t nearly as flexible as a real snake, with a more stiff slithering motion and lacking the ability to coil or wrap around things, but their limited degree of bendiness suits them just fine for gliding through the grass in search of crunchy insects and snails.

They‘re called glass lizards not due to their glassy-smooth scales, but because (unlike snakes) they readily shed their tails in sections when threatened, appearing to ‘shatter’ into two or more pieces. This individual is in the process of regenerating its tail and is shorter than normal, but in an intact individual the tail can be longer than the rest of the body and the lizard will basically break in half if handled too roughly.

Had a surprise appearance in the backyard today, a Southern Alligator Lizard! I’ve been so excited to finally see one of these since the day I started this blog, and I cannot describe my joy when I found it wiggling through the grass.

🦎 Mimic Glass Lizard - Ophisaurus mimicus