Glass Lizard

Family Anguidae

Reptile

Transcript:

Today on Animal Fact Files we’re discussing glass lizards. Glass lizards are considered legless lizards. They aren’t the only legless lizards, though; in fact, the glass lizard family has other legless lizards called slowworms. Of course, this family also has lizards with legs, so it’s not the end all be all group for glass lizards. The common name “glass lizard” doesn’t refer to a specific group of animals. Glass lizards may be found in Northern Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Americas, and they prefer open habitats. That isn’t to say they can’t be found in forests, but these ground-dwelling animals like tall grass and ground cover in which to hide. They may also burrow making them semi-fossorial in nature.

Glass lizards have a sleek appearance and their tails are longer than they might seem. The longest species of glass lizard may be more than four feet long from the nose to the tip of the tail, but in typical glass lizard fashion their tails may be more than twice their body length. That is, if they have a tail. Lots of lizard species are able to drop their tails in order to escape a predator. This is called autotomy. In the case of glass lizards, they will readily drop their tails, even when the tail isn’t being touched. Thus, glass lizards are considered fragile - like glass! The tail may fall off in pieces, like shattered glass, and there’s even a myth that glass lizards can rejoin the pieces of their tail, but that’s not quite how it works.

A new tail will regrow where the old tail was, but the regrowth looks different than the rest of the lizard’s body. For this reason glass lizards are also known as horn snakes. This tail regrowth comes to a sharp point and some people believe that this “horn” is a stinger the animal can use to defend itself, but it’s not; it’s just tail regrowth.Glass lizards are known as glass snakes, too, but they are definitely not snakes.

The easiest way to tell the difference between a glass lizard and a snake is to check for ear holes. Snakes don’t have ear holes while glass lizards, being… well… lizards... do have ear holes. Glass lizards can also blink - snakes don’t do this. And, of course, snakes aren’t able to drop their tails, but hopefully an encounter with a glass lizard won’t lead to that. Considering how much energy it takes to regrow their tails and how fragile they are, it’s better to look and not touch with these animals… though I suppose we would say that goes for just about every wild animal - though not pets... be sure to hug your sweeties today!

Predators to glass lizards include birds of prey, like hawks, mammals, like raccoons and bobcats, as well as other reptiles. In turn, glass lizards eat insects, other arthropods like spiders, as well as slugs, snails, worms, and even small mammals in the case of the larger species. It’s believed they can reach up to twenty years old and female glass lizards play an interesting role in raising their young. Where most reptiles lay their eggs and leave, a female glass lizard will wrap her body around a clutch of five to twenty eggs attending to them as they develop. While she can be easily startled from her clutch, she’ll keep returning until the babies hatch after about fifty to fifty five days. Pythons moms do something similar, though glass lizards haven’t been documented shivering like python moms do.

For more facts on terror skinks, check out the links in the description. Thank you to Katalin for today’s request! Give a thumbs up if you learned something new today, and thank you for watching Animal Fact Files!