Legless lizard

The slow-worm, a legless lizard

Legless lizard may refer to any of several groups of lizards which have independently lost limbs or reduced them to the point of being of no use in locomotion.[1] It is the common name for the family Pygopodidae,[2] but often refers to other groups, such as limbless anguids, depending upon the region of the world. These lizards are often distinguishable from snakes on the basis of one or more of the following characteristics: possessing eyelids, possessing external ear openings, lack of broad belly scales, notched rather than forked tongue, and/or a very long tail (while snakes have a long body and short tail).[1]

Many families of lizards have independently evolved limblessness or greatly reduced limbs (which are presumably non-functional in locomotion), including the following examples:[1]

The 190 species of worm-lizards in the Amphisbaenia belong to a different suborder of the Squamata to the lizards and are not included here.

See also

References

Look up legless lizard in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
  1. 1.0 1.1 1.2 Pough et al. 1992. Herpetology: Third Edition. Pearson Prentice Hall:Pearson Education, Inc., 2002.
  2. 2.0 2.1 Browne-Cooper, R., Bush, B., Maryan, B., Robinson, D. (2007). Reptiles and Frogs in the Bush: Southwestern Australia. University of Western Australia Press. pp. 243, 244. ISBN 978-1-920694-74-6.