#sheltopusik

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.

Sheltopusik also known as European legless lizard or blavor (Pseudopus apodus) is the largest European lizard. This animal is completely harmless, so don’t panic if you see it. They feed on insects, other small animals and eggs. They rarely bite and usually just poop on you in self defense:

They look very angry from the front:

And very sad and confused from above:

They are very big, over 150cm long at most. I love them beyond words. They can be kept as pets, but please don’t do that, they are all wild caught, because we don’t know how to breed them in captivity. They are super chill and fun to interact with, but don’t support wild animal trade please.

Sheltopusik or European Legless Lizard (Pseudopus apodus), family Anguidae, Georgia (the country)

Legless lizard.

Sheltopusik (Pseudopus apodus)

Family: Slowworm Family (Anguidae)

IUCN Conservation Status: Least Concern

Though snake-like in appearance, the Sheltopusik is actually one of several species of lizards that has developed a long, slender and seemingly limbless bodies (although on close inspection they do possess two tiny hindlimbs) in order to move through underground burrows and other tight spaces; key traits that distinguish these lizards from true snakes include the presence of eyelids and external ear holes, wide tongues with no forked endings and the absence of enlarged scales on the belly, limiting their ability to generate friction and meaning they struggle to slither across smooth surfaces. Found mainly in warm, dry grasslands in central Asia and southeastern Europe, Sheltopusiks are carnivorous but lack the ability to envenomate or constrict their prey, instead subduing insects, snails and small vertebrates using their powerful jaws lined with broad, rounded teeth. Members of this species also use their jaws to defend themselves when threatened, but in extreme cases when this fails to deter an attacker they may shed their tail, which can then continue to break into smaller pieces after separating from the body (this "fracturing" has led some to refer to the Sheltopusik and its relatives as "Glass Lizards".)

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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.