A Giant Worm Lizard!

The little dugout angled out of the river and approached our dock. In it sat a villager holding something at bay with one paddle while deftly maneuvering with another.

Mike Pingleton was closest, and even before the boat touched shore, he was excited. And well he should have been, for unlike one of the more common snakes the villagers usually bring us, on the bottom of the boat was a two foot long creature clad in scales of tan that were arranged in annuli.

The villager lifted the creature gently on a paddle, and Mike soon had it in hand. About the diameter of a thumb, we were all soon staring intently at a fairly common but seldom seen, legless, burrower, a Giant Worm lizard (more correctly a Giant Amphisbaenid), Amphisbaena alba.

Besides lacking limbs, this intriguing creature lacks functional eyes. The scalation is arranged in prominent rings that give it the superficial appearance of a gigantic earthworm.

To many of us, the appearance of this very specialized lizard-like animal was the high point of the trip.

More photos under the jump...

Author, photographer, and columnist Richard Bartlett is one of the most prolific writers on herpetological subjects in the 20th century. With hundreds of books and articles to their credit, Richard and his wife Pat have spent over four decades documenting reptiles both in the field and in captivity. For a list of their current titles, please visit their page in our bookstore.