Posted by Alysn Ford on May 13, 2007

Q: Hello. I am currently living in Germany in the Rhineland-Pfalz state and found a snake(?) sunbathing on my doorstep. It was about 8-10 inches long and almost completely a washed out brown color with no markings of note visible. It's body had very little delineation for the head or the tail but was consistently as thick around as a AA battery, only tapering to the tail point at about the last half inch. When I spooked it, it moved into a sort of L shape rather than a coil and when it decided that it wanted to leave it had a fair amount of trouble gripping the ground but rather flopped around a bit on the bare ground before getting a grip in the matted grass and disappearing into an invisible hole under the grass. Do you have any idea what I was looking at?

Habitat: suburban/yard

A: Thanks for a nice description Alysn. I'm not at all familiar with the reptiles of Germany but your information gave me a strong impression that you were seeing a glass lizard, not a snake! Glass lizards are found in Europe and are legless lizards that just look like snakes. Probably the easiest way to tell one of these from a snake are the ear holes in the side of their head. They also have eyelids - snakes have neither ears nor eyelids. Take a look at this website that has a photo of the European Glass Lizard and see it resembles what you found: en.wikipedia.org

Sure hope this helps. Thanks for writing.

John Wiessinger ( May 14, 2007)