the.com/legless lizard
A lizard that gave up on legs but refused to call itself a snake.
means A lizard species that has lost its limbs through evolution but is still classified as a lizard, not a snake, because of other telltale features like ear openings, eyelids, and the way its jaw and skull are built.
from The name is just plain descriptive English — 'legless' plus 'lizard' — but the biology behind it is the fun part: limblessness has evolved independently many times across different lizard families, a case of convergent evolution rather than one lineage. You tell a legless lizard from a true snake by checking for external ear openings and movable eyelids, both of which legless lizards kept even after they let the legs go.
- not a snake
- has eyelids and ear openings, snakes have neither
- tail trick
- tail snaps off, keeps wriggling to distract predators
- convergent evolution
- lost legs independently, separate branch from snakes
- found worldwide
- species live on every continent except antarctica