Description ²

These reptiles are mostly active during the twilight and occasionally bask in the sun, but are more often found hiding beneath rocks and logs. They are carnivorous and, because they feed on slugs and worms, they can often be found in long grass and other damp environments.

The females give birth to live young (ovoviviparous birth). In the days leading up to birth, the female can often be seen basking in the sun on a warm road.

Although these lizards are often mistaken for snakes, a number of features differentiate them. The most important one is that they have small eyes with eyelids that, like other lizards, blink. Unlike snakes, they may also have visible ears. They shed their skin in patches, whereas most snakes shed their whole skin. Slowworms may also shed their tails (autotomy) as a defence mechanism, by breaking one of their tail vertebrae in half. Also, the pattern of their ventral scales is totally different from that of snakes.

Adult slowworms grow to be about 50 cm long, and are known for their exceptionally long lives; the slowworm may be the longest-living lizard, living about 30 years in the wild and up to at least 54 years in captivity (this record is held by a male slowworm that lived at the Copenhagen Zoo from 1892 until 1946, the age when first obtained is unknown). The female often has a stripe along the spine and dark sides, while the male may have blue spots dorsally. Juveniles of both sexes are gold with dark brown bellies and sides with a dark stripe along the spine.

Fontes e Créditos

1. (c) Aleksandar, alguns direitos reservados (CC BY-SA), uploaded by Aleksandar
2. Adaptado por Aleksandar de uma obra de (c) Wikipedia, alguns direitos reservados (CC BY-SA), http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anguis_fragilis

Mais informações

• BioDiversity4All taxon page
• Animal Diversity Web
• Biodiversity Heritage Library
• BOLD Systems BIN search
• Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF)
• HerpMapper
• NBN Atlas
• The Reptile Database
• VertNet

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