These lizards are around 7 inches (18 cm) long from snout to vent (not including tail). Anniella pulchra. California legless lizards are often mistaken for snakes because of their complete lack of limbs and elongated bodies. It doesn’t bask in the sun like the Western Fence or Alligator lizards.
Anniella pulchra is traditionally split into two subspecies - Anniella pulchra pulchra - Silvery Legless Lizard, and Anniella pulchra nigra - Black Legless lizard, but these subspecies are no longer recognized by the SSAR (whose taxonomy is followed here) because of a 2000 study that showed that A. p. nigra and the Morro Bay populations have been found to have different … The California legless lizard is slender, and ranges in length from about 4 to 7 inches snout to vent. They have small, smooth scales typically colored silvery above and yellow below, although black or dark brown forms exist in There were formerly two subspecies of California legless lizard recognized based on individual color morphs: the silvery legless lizard, They live in loose, sandy soils or leaf litter, typically in sand dunes along the coast. They are found from Their diet consists of mainly beetles, larval insects, termites, ants, and spiders.
It has a shovel-shaped snout, smooth shiny scales and a blunt tail.
Silvery Legless Lizard.
The Silvery Legless Lizard prefers cooler temperatures. This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged. This lizard is often confused with a snake because it has no legs. However, contemporary taxonomy considers them simply a melanistic morph. There were formerly two subspecies of California legless lizard recognized based on individual color morphs: the silvery legless lizard, A. p. pulchra, and the black legless lizard, A. p. nigra.
This lizard is often confused with a snake because it has no legs.
It doesn’t bask in the sun like the Western Fence or Alligator lizards. Aniella pulchra was formerly split into two subspecies (Aniella pulchra pulc… It varies in color from metallic silver, beige, dark brown to black, and it typically has a dark line along its back and several thin stripes between scale rows along its sides. The Silvery Legless Lizard prefers cooler temperatures. The silvery legless lizard is nearly endemic to California. It burrows in loose soil or hides in leaf litter to wait for an unwary insect to trundle by.Sign up for email updates, including trail openings/closures,
It ranges from Antioch in Contra Costa County south through the Coast, Transverse, and Peninsular Ranges, along the western edge of the Sierra Nevada Mountains and parts of the San Joaquin Valley and Mojave Desert to El Consuelo in Baja California (Hunt 1983, Jennings and Hayes 1994). However, California legless lizards lack external ear openings and have unreduced eyes with moveable lids (Cogger and Zweifel, 1998). But you can tell it’s a lizard when it blinks because snakes have no eyelids and can’t close their eyes. But you can tell it’s a lizard when it blinks because snakes have no eyelids and can’t close their eyes. California legless lizards can also use tail autotomy to avoid predation, unlike snakes. More recently (in 2013), A. pulchra has been split up into five different species: A. pulchra (with a narrower definition), A. alexanderae, A. campi, A. grinnelli, and A. stebbinsi.