Legless lizard

A lizard with greatly reduced or absent limbs that retains lizard traits such as movable eyelids and external ear openings. Many species resemble snakes but belong to distinct lizard lineages.

Squamata: The reptile order containing lizards and snakes, characterized by overlapping scales and a kinetic skull. Legless lizards are limbless members of this broader reptile order.
Limb reduction in tetrapods: The evolutionary reduction or loss of limbs in four-limbed vertebrates. Legless lizards are one outcome of repeated limb reduction among reptiles.
Slowworm: A limbless European lizard in the glass lizard family Anguidae. It has eyelids and ear openings despite its snake-like shape.
Convergent evolution: The independent evolution of similar traits in lineages that do not share those traits through a recent common ancestor. Limbless body forms arose independently in multiple lizard lineages.
Lizard: A reptile in a diverse group that includes geckos, iguanas, skinks, and monitor lizards. Legless lizards retain lizard anatomy despite losing or reducing their limbs.
Serpentine locomotion: Movement by lateral waves of a body with an elongated, flexible trunk. Many legless lizards travel by undulating their bodies against the ground.
Sheltopusik: A large legless lizard, Pseudopus apodus, native to parts of southeastern Europe and western Asia. Its small external ear openings and movable eyelids mark it as a lizard.
Pygopodidae: A family of Australian and New Guinean lizards with elongated bodies and absent or tiny forelimbs. Pygopodids evolved their legless form independently of many other legless lizards.
Snake: A limbless squamate reptile with a highly elongated body and no movable eyelids or external ear openings. These missing features help distinguish snakes from legless lizards.
Burrowing: The excavation and use of tunnels or cavities in soil or other substrates. A long body and reduced limbs can help some species move through soil or leaf litter.

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AmphisbaeniaCompared with: Many legless lizards live above ground, unlike the predominantly subterranean amphisbaenians.