ID Help

[JosPythons]

Hi all.......my brother found this little baby under his house tonight. The pic isn't the greatest and I can only view it on my phone which makes it hard to ID it so I thought I would throw it out to you guys (rather than give him an ID that I'm not 100% positive with). Luckily he is appreciative of our native reptiles so the little one will be relocated in the morning. Thanks in advance for your help folks

Oh yeah I should tell you he lives inbthe Central Highlands of Queensland.....Blackwater. Cheers


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[GeckoJosh]

It is a type of Scaleyfoot (legless lizard), more than likely Pygopus schraderi given the general appearance and the place it was found.

 

[Bushman]

Although I don't usually make a guess on such a fuzzy pic, I think Josh may be right, as I'm pretty sure I can see what looks like flaps quite high up the body in the first pic.
If it wasn't for these I would not risk making a call on this, as juvenile brown snakes are superficially very similar. In fact, I'm pretty sure that these lizards have evolved to look like these venomous elapids, as a deterrent to potential predators.

 

[GeckoJosh]

Although I don't usually make a guess on such a fuzzy pic, I think Josh may be right, as I'm pretty sure I can see what looks like flaps quite high up the body in the first pic.
If it wasn't for these I would not risk making a call on this, as juvenile brown snakes are superficially very similar. In fact, I'm pretty sure that these lizards have evolved to look like these venomous elapids, as a deterrent to potential predators.

Yeah I was also very hesitant to make a call on this ID as the pics are not exactly the best, if I could not see the flaps I would not have attempted.

 

[JosPythons]

Thanks for your help guys. My initial thought was a juvie brown but certainly didn't feel right with that call. I hadn't even considered a lizard as I don't know a lot about them.......that's going to change though thanks again. Cheers

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[GeckoJosh]

Thanks for your help guys. My initial thought was a juvie brown but certainly didn't feel right with that call. I hadn't even considered a lizard as I don't know a lot about them.......that's going to change though thanks again. Cheers

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These guys look a lot like juvie Browns to the untrained eye so you werent too far off lol.
It is always smart to treat any reptile you are not sure of as a brown snake anyway.

 

[saratoga]

Another general difference between snakes and legless lizards is in the way the body tapers.

Snakes start thinner at the head end, get thicker mid body, and then taper again towards the tail.

Legless lizards start off medium thickness and slowly taper off towards the tail (they don't tend to get noticeably larger mid-body).

I think you can get a general impression of this by looking at the thumbnails, however as the others have said, the presence of limb flaps is much more definative!

 

[Bluetongue1]

I must say I am struggling to identify limb flaps. However, there are a number of salient and observable feature which indicate Pygopus schraderi. The tails of legless lizards can be up to or exceed 400% of the body length whilst with snakes the tail length is a maximum of 50% and more often less than 20% of the body length. This explains the difference in body shape / proportions as described. The banding on a juvenile brown snake is considerably wider than banding evident in the photos. Further evidence that we are looking at a pygopod and not an elapid.

Identification of ear holes and observation of an undivided tongue would confirm we are dealing with a lizard,

Blue

 

[GeckoJosh]

Bluetongue1

 

[JosPythons]

Thanks guys

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[richoman_3]

pygopus schraderi.
nice find