Comments on: New Limbless Lizard Discovered

By: niladri

niladri — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 17:33:28 +0000

Dear Friends,
It seems our small lizard has raised many questions in your mind. As I am a part of the team which discovered it. I would like to clarify your doubts on this aspect. It is no doubt a lizard rather than a mistaken snake. Please post any question you would like to me on the lizard. And some people say how can we say that no other lizards are found in the whole world. Well we have been misquoted. It is an evolutionary significant discovery.

By: twas brillig

twas brillig — Thu, 31 May 2007 20:45:56 +0000

Thanks for the informative responses Jayman, I really appreciated reading them.

I just wanted to mention that this lizard looks a lot like an Aligator LIzard we have out here on the west coast (US), but a legless variety. At least a superficial similiarity perhaps due to their shared prefered habitation. That being under cool rocks etc.

By: mystery_man

mystery_man — Thu, 31 May 2007 16:01:32 +0000

Bob Michaels- The answer to your question is actually pretty complicated and kind of a trick question. The evolution of snakes is not very well understood and is the subject of some debate especially considering that the fossil record for snakes is full of holes and is quite incomplete. Snake fossils are delicate and do not fossilize easily, which leaves the record patchy. I won’t go into too much detail, but the main theory is that snakes evolved from a family of lizards during the time of the dinosaurs. It is thought these lizards adapted to a burrowing way of life in order to open up new food sources and afford protection from predators. It wasn’t until later on that many snakes abandoned the burrowing lifestyle and proceeded to fill the myriad niches they inhabit today. In modern times, there are arboreal snakes, desert snakes, ground dwelling snakes, marine snakes, snakes living in a wide variety of habitats and niches, yet they are thought to have all evolved from lizards that originally adapted to burrow. If you want to look at this strictly speaking, then since they evolved essentially from legless lizards, the legless lizards came first.

But another way to look at it would be that modern legless lizards as we know them came second because they represent species of legged lizards that evolved later on to utilize the rescources and burrowing lifestyle that was being abandoned by the snakes. As these burrowing niches opened up, some lizards adapted to exploit them and so from this perspective, snakes came first. So in a way, you could say that snakes came first.

There has actually been some debate as to how exactly snakes evolved and some have challenged the commonly held theory that I just told you. There are those who think that snakes represent the evolution of lizards adapting to a marine lifestyle rather than a burrowing one, and other theories are floating around as well. It is not known for certain and it is difficult since as I said, the fossil record for snakes is poor, so the debate will probably continue although improved DNA and molecular analysis will perhaps clear up some questions. It’s very interesting to speculate about although I personally think that snakes evolved from lizards that evolved to burrow.

By: Bob Michaels

Bob Michaels — Wed, 30 May 2007 22:31:30 +0000

Mystery man, I agree with your analysis. What came first the limbless lizard or the snake?

By: Bob Michaels

Bob Michaels — Wed, 30 May 2007 22:28:41 +0000

Cryptozoology shop, yes indeed it could be an Amphisbaenians, but they are known from Africa and South America, could be a form in the Gobi desert.

By: sschaper

sschaper — Wed, 30 May 2007 21:27:13 +0000

czs, I’ve always thought that der totenvurm sounded like a legless lizard like the above. I suspect that is what will be found.

By: cryptozoologyshop

cryptozoologyshop — Wed, 30 May 2007 20:51:48 +0000

That’s not too far from the Gobi Desert… Maybe a limbless lizard is to blame for the Mongolian Death Worm reports – it’s a possibility anyway.

By: springheeledjack

springheeledjack — Wed, 30 May 2007 04:09:02 +0000

You guys know your reptiles! Cool…I will turn to you for information when I need to know my reptiles!

By: mystery_man

mystery_man — Wed, 30 May 2007 03:11:06 +0000

Bob Michaels- Indeed, there would be some sort of advantage in order for an organism to undergo such drastic evolutionary change. These features do not happen in a vacuum, for no reason, but rather they persist and are passed on because they are of some use to the creature. In the case of this species, since it seems to prefer soft soil, the benefit could be the aid that leglessness gives to burrowing. Evolving leglessness presents advantages to burrowing into the ground and therefore exploiting resources that other legged, non burrowing animals were unable to get at.

By: jayman

jayman — Wed, 30 May 2007 02:09:18 +0000

Joppa, this would have been the misnamed “glass snake”, so called from the brittle tail. It was also called “joint snake” from the folk belief that the animal could rejoin with its separated tail later.

The so-called “slow worm” or “blindworm” of the British Isles and maybe continental Europe is also a legless lizard.