Southern California legless lizard facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Southern California legless lizard |
|
|---|---|
| Scientific classification | |
| Genus: |
Anniella
|
| Species: |
stebbinsi
|
The Anniella stebbinsi, also known as the Southern California legless lizard, is a small, thin lizard. As its name suggests, it does not have legs. We don't know a lot about this specific lizard species. Most of what we know came from when it was thought to be the same as the California legless lizard (Anniella pulchra).
Contents
About This Legless Lizard
What's in a Name?
The second part of its scientific name, stebbinsi, is a way to honor Robert C. Stebbins. He was an American scientist who studied reptiles and amphibians.
How to Spot It
The Southern California legless lizard is small and thin. It has no legs and a snout shaped like a shovel. Its scales are smooth and shiny, and its tail is blunt. If you look closely, you can see it has eyelids. This helps us know it's a lizard and not a snake.
Its back is light olive-brown. Its sides are a bright yellow. The belly is also a medium yellow color. It has a thin black stripe down the middle of its back. This stripe goes from its head all the way to the tip of its tail. It also has several black stripes, one scale wide, from its eyes to the tip of its tail. The very first adult female lizard studied was 132 mm (5.2 in) long from its snout to its vent. Its tail, which had grown back, was 81 mm (3.2 in) long.
Where It Lives
You can find this lizard in southern California, USA. It also lives in the northern part of Baja California, Mexico.
Its Home and How We Protect It
The Southern California legless lizard lives in more types of places than other lizards in its group. It often lives in sand dunes near the coast. It also lives in different areas inland, like sandy dry riverbeds and flat areas where dirt has washed down from hills.
These lizards mostly live underground. They dig tunnels in loose, sandy soil. Sadly, much of their coastal sand dune home has been destroyed. This happened because of buildings and development along the coast. This destruction stretches between Ventura County and the Mexican border. However, a large group of these lizards is protected. They live in a part of the old El Segundo Dunes, which is now at the Los Angeles International Airport.
As of March 2017, a group called the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) had not yet checked this species. This means they had not decided how much it needs protecting on their Red List.
