European Glass Lizard

The European glass lizard, also called the sheltopusik or Pallas's glass lizard, is a large legless lizard found from southern Europe to Central Asia. It can reach 135 cm including the tail and has a segmented, tan body that resembles a large earthworm. Only tiny rear legs, about 2 mm long, are sometimes visible near the cloaca. It lives in open country such as short grassland and sparsely wooded hills, and eats arthropods and small mammals, with snails and slugs apparently its favorite prey. When harassed it hisses, bites and musks, and a lost tail grows back shorter and darker.

About the European glass lizard

The European glass lizard, also called the sheltopusik, is a large legless lizard in the family Anguidae, the group that includes the slowworm and other glass lizards. Although it looks like a snake, it is a true lizard. It lives in dry, open country from southern Europe across Turkey and the Caucasus to Central Asia.

Its scientific name is Pseudopus apodus, from Greek words meaning "fake foot, no foot." The naturalist Peter Simon Pallas first described it in 1775 as Lacerta apoda. It was long placed in the glass lizard genus Ophisaurus before being moved to its own genus, Pseudopus. The common name sheltopusik comes from a Russian word meaning roughly "yellow-belly."

This is a big lizard. It can reach about 135 to 140 cm (4.4 to 4.6 ft) in total length, and it is the largest member of its family, the Anguidae. In a normal, intact animal the tail is about one and a half times as long as the rest of the body and ends in a point. Males are larger than females on average.

Adults are tan to yellowish or reddish brown, paler on the belly and the head. Ring-like rows of scales give the body a segmented look, a little like a giant earthworm. The scales are set in a diamond pattern and backed by small plates of bone, so the animal feels stiffer to the touch than its small relative, the slowworm.

Young glass lizards look quite different. For their first two to three years they are light grey with brown crossbars, and their scales are keeled. The scales become almost smooth as they age.

A fold of skin, called the lateral groove, runs along each side of the body from the head to the base of the tail. The legs have almost disappeared. All that remains are tiny hind-leg stubs about 2 to 3 mm long beside the vent, and these are not always visible.

The head is strong and barely set off from the neck. The skull is long and narrow, twice as long as it is wide, with large eye sockets.

Behavior and diet

The European glass lizard is diurnal. It basks often and for long periods, but it is also active in the rain. Snails and slugs appear to be its favorite food, which may explain why it gets busy in wet weather even though it prefers dry habitat.

Its teeth are broad and blunt, built for crushing, and its jaws make easy work of snail shells. Depending on where it lives, it eats mainly insects and snails, and less often small birds, their eggs, or small mammals such as mice. It stalks prey in short bursts, freezing for minutes at a time until it is close enough to grab its victim from above. Because it eats garden pests, it is considered useful to people.

From about October to March, glass lizards rest through the cold months. Mating follows in March. Roughly every two months the lizard sheds its skin, which is pushed together and cast off in a ring-shaped roll.

When threatened, a glass lizard may flee quickly or lie still and trust its camouflage. Accounts of what comes next differ. Some describe it hissing, biting and releasing a foul musk when harassed. Others say that a lizard that is grabbed twists hard around its own axis to break free, may then go rigid, and does not bite as a defense.

Like many lizards, it can shed its tail, though it does so less readily than some species. These occasional tail drops gave the group its name. A dropped tail may break into several pieces, which led to the myth that a glass lizard can shatter like glass and then put itself back together.

In reality, a lost tail grows back slowly, and the new one is shorter and darker. Given enough time, it may regrow to full length.

About 10 weeks after mating, the female lays her eggs, usually about eight, within a range of six to twelve. She hides them under bark or a stone and often guards them, sometimes coiling around the clutch.

The young hatch after 45 to 55 days. Hatchlings are about 15 cm (5.9 in) long and usually start eating after four days.

Range and habitat

The species ranges from southern Europe to Central Asia. Three subspecies are recognized. The westernmost, P. a. thracius, lives from Croatia to Greece and east to western Turkey, and includes the European animals. The type subspecies, P. a. apodus, ranges from Crimea through the Caucasus and east into Central Asia as far as Kazakhstan. The species' range also takes in Iraq and Iran. The third, P. a. levantinus, lives in the Levant from southern Turkey south to Israel and Palestine.

The Levant subspecies was only described in 2021, yet it is the largest and most genetically diverse of the three, pointing to a longer evolutionary history. Remains of these lizards found at prehistoric Natufian sites in Israel suggest people once ate them.

Glass lizards favor warm, dry, open country with scattered vegetation, such as short grassland and sparsely wooded hills, at elevations up to about 2,300 m (7,550 ft). They like spots where sun and shade lie close together, and they use bushes and rock rubble for cover. They also live in farmland, vineyards and old stone walls.

European glass lizard vs snake

At a glance, a European glass lizard is easy to mistake for a snake. A few features give it away.

Conservation status

The European glass lizard is listed as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List, in an assessment published in 2021, and its population trend is considered stable. It has a very wide range stretching across two continents.

The species is often sold in the exotic pet trade, though it is rarely bred in captivity. It adapts well, accepts crickets, mealworms, snails, small mice and pieces of meat, and is known as a hardy, long-lived captive. It does not usually tolerate much handling, and it has strong jaws.

Fossils of the genus Pseudopus about four million years old have also been found in Pliocene sediments at the Hambach mine in Germany.