The other day a lady turned up with a snake-like creature well sealed in a clear plastic container. She was excited to know about this newly found ‘snake'.
I assured her it was nothing but a harmless lizard-like reptile.
There is a group of lizard-like reptiles called glass snake, glass lizard, limbless lizard, glass worm or amphisbaenid.
These are neither lizards nor snakes but distantly related to them.
They are all devoid of limbs and external ears. We are lucky to have one – Amphisbaenid Diplometopon zarudni – in the UAE.
This name has come from the Latin word amphisbaena, meaning an animal having one head at each end. In reality, no animal can have heads on both ends of its body.
Externally, Zarudnyi's amphisbaenid – or worm lizard – resembles both the blind snake and the earthworms we see around our gardens.
This subterranean amphisbaenid lives in flowerbeds and compacted soil in gardens. It feeds on ants, larvae of insects and worms.
This is absolutely a harmless creature and beneficial to our gardens as it eats lots of harmful animals.
So allow it to live in your garden in peace.
