Anniella stebbinsi

The Southern California Legless Lizard (Anniella Stebbinsi) is a small, slender lizard, and, as the name suggests, is legless.

Not much is known about the Southern California legless lizard as a separate species, with most observations conducted while it was not recognised as separate from Anniella pulchra. This includes behaviour and life history.

As of March 2017, the IUCN has not assessed this species for the IUCN Red List.

Description

The Southern California legless lizard is small and slender, with no legs, a shovel-shaped snout, smooth shiny scales, and a blunt tail. On close observation, eyelids are also present, making the species a lizard and not a snake. Its dorsum is light olive-brown, with strong yellow sides, and its ventral colour is moderate yellow. It also has a black mid-dorsal stripe with the length of less than one scale wide that stretches from the parietals to the tip of the tail, and multiple black stripes that are one scale wide from the eye to the tip of the tail.

Ecology

The Southern California is known to not bask in direct sunlight, and has a tolerance of low temperatures, allowing most of its activity to occur in cool conditions. The Southern California legless lizard is also mostly active during the morning and the evening, their diet mainly subsisting on larval insects, beetles, termites, and spiders.

Habitat

The Southern California legless lizard is found in a wider range of habitat then any other species in the genus, mostly found in coastal sand dunes and a variety of interior habitats, including sandy washes and alluvial fans. They live mostly underground, burrowing in the loose, sandy soil. However, much of the coastal dune habitat has been destroyed by coastal development between Ventura County and the Mexican Border. However, a large protected population persists in the remnant of the once extensive El Segundo Dunes at Los Angeles International Airport.