Also known as a legless-lizard, Burton’s snake-lizard has a distinctive long, pointed wedge-shaped snout unlike any other reptile, with the head scales small, fragmented and irregular.

Colour and patterns vary within the species, ranging from cream and pattern-less through to shades of grey, brown, yellow, and red with combinations of stripes, lines and spots.

Although often confused for a snake, legless lizards differ in a variety of ways. They lack venom glands are unable to constrict prey, they have a fleshy tongue rather than a forked tongue, visible ear holes, and remnant hind limbs. Burton’s snake-lizard and the family Pygopodidae, as a whole, are members of the infraorder Gekkota, meaning that they are essentially legless geckos.

Interesting Fact

Burton’s Snake-lizard is Australia’s most widespread reptile and inhabits almost all Australian ecosystems with few exceptions.