Anguis fragilis

Anguis fragilis is a Espèce of Orvet, a apodal Lézard (without legs) often confused with a Serpent.

Its nickname of snake of glass comes owing to the fact that, following the example many other lizards, its tail is fragile.

The head is small with conical and round muzzle. The end of the tail is a little round.

Coloring is very variable according to the age, of the sex and the geographical varieties. The color of the back varies yellow with reddish, sometimes bluish, plain black or presenting large dark bands.

The length of the males is from 30 to 40 cm, reaching 50 cm almost exceptionally. The length of the female is of 50 cm.

The slow worm is endowed with autotomy , i.e. it can, like the lizards, to separate from its tail if a danger threatens it. It can carry out this act only once in its life, and the tail which pushes back is then much shorter than the first.

The slow worm is digger which passes the majority of its time under ground: it digs itself its galleries or uses those of rodents.

Known maximum longevity: 54 years.

The slow worms are carnivorous which consume mainly Limace S and worms of ground.

Threats

As much of animals with cold blood, they are sensitive to the pesticides Insecticide S and perhaps to some weeding and fungicidal.

Most of their population disappeared because of the urbanization, the periurbanisation, the ecological Fragmentation of the landscape (it is sensitive to the Roadkill) and especially of the retreat of the meadows and the scrap-metal and the Intensive agriculture. Their mode of food exposes them to pollutants or toxic concentrates by the invertebrates which they consume (of which radionuclides in the affected areas by the cloud of Tchernobyl).

Its resemblance to the snakes in often made a liked evil that one could kill for this only reason, in spite of his qualities of auxiliary of agriculture and the gardening.

Subspecies

Anguis fragilis fragilis Linnaeus, 1758
Anguis fragilis colchica (Nordmann, 1840)

Another subspecies, A.F. peloponnesiacus Stepanek, 1937, proved to be in fact Anguis cephallonica .

External bonds

References

Baran, I., Kasparek, Mr., & OZ, Mr. 1988. One the distribution off the slow fox trot WORM, Anguis fragilis, and the European knell lizard, Ophisaurus apodus, in Turkey Zool. in the Middle East (Heidelberg) 2 : 57-62.
Boulenger, G.A. 1885. Catalog off the lizards in the British Museum (Natural History). Vol. 2, Second edition . London, xiii+497 pp.
Capula, Massimo; Anibaldi, Claudio; Filippi, Ernesto; Luiselli, Luca 1999. Reproductive Sexual engagements, matings, and phenology in year alpine population off the WORM slow fox trot, Anguis fragilis Herpetological Natural History 6 (1) : 33-39 * Clark, R.J. and Clark, E.D. 1970. Notes one furnace lizard species from the Peloponnese, Greece: Algyroides moreoticus Bibron and Bory, Anguis fragilis peloponnesiacus Stepanek, Ophiomorus punctatissimus (Bibron and Bory) and Ophisaurus apodus (Pallas). British Newspaper off Herpetology 4 : 135-137.
Frynta, D. and Al 1997. Results off the Czech biological forwarding to Iran. 1 leaves. Notes one the distribution off amphibians and reptiles. Acta Zool Plowshare. Bohem. 61 : 3-17
Henle, K. 1985. Ökologische, zoogeographische und systematische Bemerkungen zur Herpetofauna Jugoslawiens. Salamandra 21 (4) : 229-251
Linnaeus, C. 1758. Systema naturæ per reigned sorted naturæ, secundum classes, process, generated, species, cum characteribus, differentiis, synonymis, locis. Tomus I. Editio decimated, reformata. Laurentii Salvii, Holmiæ. 10th Edition : 824 pp.
Stèpànek, O. 1937. Anguis fragilis peloponnesiacus N. ssp. Zool. Anz. 118 : 107-110

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