#bachia

South American Worm Lizard (Bachia flavescens), family Gymnophthalmidae, French Guiana

If you look closely, the lizard does have a pair of tiny front legs.

Worm Lizard (Bachia sp.), family Gymnophthalmidae, Amazonian Peru

If you look closely, the lizard does have a pair of tiny front legs.

Stacy's Worm Lizard (Bachia trisnale), family Gymnophthalmidae, Amazonian Peru

These worm lizards have 4 tiny limbs.

South American Worm Lizard (Bachia flavescens), family Gymnophthalmidae, French Guiana

These lizards have 4 tiny limbs.

They live on the forest floor, in leaf litter.

South American Worm Lizards (Bachia spp.), family Gymnophthalmidae, French Guiana

These lizards have 4 tiny limbs.

They live on the forest floor, in leaf litter

Bachia dorbignyi in Madre de Dios, Peru (photo: Erfil)

Bachia bicolor, northern South America (photo: Esteban Alzate)

Trinidad Worm Lizard, Bachia trinitatis, Trinidad (photo: renoirjauguste)

Spectacled Lizard - Bachia geralista 

This is not a worm, nor a snake, but a Spectacled Lizard of the species Bachia geralista (Gymnophthalmidae), endemic to Brazil.

Spectacled lizards of the Gymnophthalmidae family are informally referred to as microteiids. Gymnophthalmids have a complex taxonomy derived not only from the rarity of many taxa, but also from the presence of convergent morphological adaptations to specialized habitats. Limb reduction, body elongation, loss of eyelids and/or of external ear openings, are some of the characters that contribute to the present difficulty of resolving relationships among microteiids at all hierarchical levels.

Bachia geralista is a large-sized species (101 mm of maximum known SVL), with noticeable body elongation and limb reduction. In this species the fore and hindlimbs end in an single apical scale (can you see the limbs in the photo?). 

References: [1] - [2]

Looks like a snake, but no, it is a lizard with reduced limbs of the genus Bachia, classified in the family Gymnophthalmidae. They sometimes are known as spectacled lizards or microteiids. They are called 'spectacled' because of their transparent lower eyelids, so they can still see with closed eyes. Like most lizards, but unlike geckos, these eyelids are movable.

There are 22 known species within the genus Bachia, all with distribution in Central and South America. Specimen shown was photographed in Rondônia, Brazil.