Lialis burtonis Gray, 1835

Burton's legless lizard (Lialis burtonis Gray, 1835) has several key morphological adaptations that help it subdue large struggling prey.

Skull and Teeth Features

First, it has a skull with an elongated snout, paired with pointed, recurved, hinged teeth that may help it grip prey.

Snout Vision Function

The elongated snout may also support binocular vision, allowing it to strike more accurately.

Jaw Joint Adaptations

Another adaptation that helps the lizard hold prey is flexible mesokinetic and hypokinetic jaw joints, which let its jaws encircle large prey items.

Eye Retraction Trait

Finally, the species can retract its eyes; this is especially important because it is a visual predator that depends on eyesight, and retraction protects the eyes during conflict with prey.

Australian Distribution

Burton's legless lizard is found across almost all of Australia, but is absent from parts of southern Australia including Tasmania.

Papua New Guinea Range

It also occurs in a single small restricted area in Papua New Guinea.

Habitat Breadth

The species lives in a wide range of habitats, from deserts to rainforest margins, but is not found in southern alpine areas or extreme northern deserts.

Preferred Microhabitat

It typically occurs in low vegetation or ground debris, most notably leaf litter; an experiment with tropical populations found that when offered multiple thermally similar habitats, the lizards strongly preferred leaf litter.

Alternative Shelter Options

Where leaf litter is not common, the species will use grasses, abandoned burrows, and other available shelter.

Breeding Season Timing

Reproduction in Burton's legless lizard is generally seasonal across Australian populations, with mating occurring around the same time across the region. Mating and ovulation most often take place from September through summer.

Egg Laying Patterns

The species is oviparous, and eggs are usually laid between November and January, but reproduction can happen outside the typical breeding season, and females can lay more than one clutch per year.

Egg Laying Sites

Eggs are laid under logs or rocks, on the ground, under leaf litter, and sometimes in the nests of sugar ants.

Clutch Characteristics

Clutches can be laid in quick succession, and each clutch holds 1 to 3 tough, leathery eggs; a clutch size of 2 is the most common by far.

Communal Nesting

Nesting can be communal, and up to 20 eggs have been found in a single nest.

Female Reproductive Strategies

Females of the species are capable of either storing sperm to use for reproduction later, or reproducing via parthenogenesis, which does not require mating to produce offspring.

Hatchling Size

Newly hatched Burton's legless lizards are approximately 13 centimetres long.