Legless lizard or snake?

Question

My brother and I were at the pet store and we were looking at the reptilee when he (brother) noticed something moving under the sand in a upper tank. He asked an employee what it was and no one even knew that there was anything in the tank,as it had no name tag or price on it. So we all looked and finaly got the animal out.To me,it loked like a legless lizard,but some other people thought it was a type of kingsnake.It was stout-bodied,about 10 inches long,with very smooth skin and a distinctly lizard-like head and eyes. It's head was small relative to the size of the body,and the tail was very short and thick,which leads me to believe that it is a lizard. It had a pale belly,and the body was light orange and gray with white mottling. It was very calm. I believe it was a type of legless lizard but I am unable to find it online.Does anyone know what type of legless lizard it could be,or could it have been a snake?

Answer 1

Glass lizards look like that, but so do sand boas. If there are no external ears it is a snake.

Answer 2

Legless lizards have ear openings on the sides of their heads. Snakes do not have these openings. If the creature is a legless lizard, it may be a California legless. If it is a snake, it may be a baby rosy boa.

Answer 3

Certain closely related species can mate and produce live offspring, such as lions and tigers, horses and zebras, etc. However what distinguishes one species from another is the failure to produce offspring that can survive, prosper, and go on to make the original miscegenation perpetrators grandparents. I suppose if humans can do it with farm animals then snakes and legless lizards could sleep together, but nothing would come of it since they are not THAT closely related.

Answer 4

If I remember right you are in the UK?



Maybe a european legless...http://www.kaweahoaks.com/html/lizard_legless.htm



If you can go back and get another look, lizards have eyelids, and ear holes, and legless lizards do not have a forked tongue. If the tongue forked, there were no eye lids, and no ears then it's a snake.

Answer 5

From my experience legless lizards like all lizards have eye lids ,snakes don't.Hope this helps some.

Answer 6

That doesn't sound anything like a king snake. Perhaps it was a glass lizard?