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Legless Lizards
Legless lizard may refer to any of several groups of lizards that have independently lost limbs or reduced them to the point of being of no use in locomotion.Pough ''et al.'' 1992. Herpetology: Third Edition. Pearson Prentice Hall:Pearson Education, Inc., 2002. It is the common name for the family Pygopodidae. 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 *having two lungs of roughly equal size (snakes have one short and one very long lung) *having a very long tail (while snakes have a long body and short tail). Every stage of reduction of the shoulder girdle —including complete loss— occurs among limbless squamates, but the pelvic girdle is never completely lost regardless of the degree of limb reduction or loss. At least the ilium is retained in limbless lizards and most basal snakes. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anguidae
Anguidae refers to a large and diverse family of lizards native to the Northern Hemisphere. It contains 9 genera and 89 extant species. Common characteristics of this group include a reduced supratemporal arch, striations on the medial faces of tooth crowns, osteoderms, and a lateral fold in the skin of most taxa. The group is divided into two living subfamilies, the legless Anguinae, which contains slow worms and glass lizards, among others, found across the Northern Hemisphere, and Gerrhonotinae, which contains the alligator lizards, native to North and Central America. The family Diploglossidae (which contains the galliwasps) was also formerly included. Morphology and reproduction Anguids have hard osteoderms beneath their scales giving them an armored appearance. Members of the subfamily Anguinae have reduced or absent limbs, giving them a snake-like appearance, while members of Gerrohonotinae are fully limbed. Body type varies among species, with sizes ranging from ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Scheltopusik
The sheltopusik (''Pseudopus apodus''), also commonly called Pallas's glass lizard, the European legless lizard, or the European glass lizard, is a species of large glass lizard found from Southern Europe to Central Asia. Taxonomy The sheltopusik was previously included in the genus ''Ophisaurus'', but has since been placed in its own genus ''Pseudopus''. It was originally described in 1775 by Peter Simon Pallas as ''Lacerta apoda''. There are three subspecies: * ''P. a. apodus'' (Pallas, 1775) – the type subspecies, ranging from Crimea through Transcaucasia, east to Central Asia as far as Kazakhstan * ''P. a. levantinus'' Jablonski, Ribeiro-Junior, Meiri, Maza, Mikulíček & Janzik, 2021 – restricted to the Levant, from southern Turkey south to Israel and Palestine * ''P. a. thracicus'' (Obst, 1978) – the westernmost subspecies, ranging from Croatia to Greece, east to western Turkey Despite only being described in 2021, ''P. a. levantinus'' is the largest and most gene ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
