Species group · Reptiles
WAnimals has 2 species of slow worm, in the family Anguidae.
Ranges calculated from the profiles that record the figure, not from all 2.
Each one has its own full profile. This group does not replace them: it brings them together.
No species documented in this group is genuinely at risk according to the IUCN, with the data available today.
Recorded in 47 countries. The ones with the most species in the group:
It is not a snake although it looks like one: it has movable eyelids and can blink, it has external ear openings and it keeps tiny vestiges of hind legs beside the cloaca, three features no snake has.
Its body is covered in stiff osteoderms, and a flexible groove along each side lets it expand in order to breathe and to digest large prey, which its armour would otherwise not allow.
It eats snails, shell and all, crushing them with blunt teeth and powerful jaws, and it also preys on eggs and rodents.
It is a legless lizard often mistaken for a snake, able to shed its tail to escape a predator as many other lizards do.
From Slow Worm