hey everyone we're doing another species spotlight today and this one i think a lot of people are
actually really looking forward to uh when i did the unboxing of getting a pair of these a couple
of weeks ago but without further ado we're going to be doing the european legless lozer
so across the world there's actually well over a hundred species of different legless lizards
but these guys or the shelto pusic which i probably mispronounced uh is the largest species
there's actually three different subspecies of them and all of them can achieve well over four
feet length never really too much larger than that but four feet is still pretty big and this guy
right here is close to three already now these guys were found throughout europe and into central
asia from the european countries like croatia and greece across that baltic sea into as far east as
kurzick stand uh so near india that central asian area they're all found in pretty similar habitat
which is short grasslands and kind of sparsely forested areas nothing too too heavy they like
lots of sun exposure now obviously the further east you go towards closer to that middle east
area that we like to refer to as it's a little bit drier but overall it's pretty similar habitat
now these guys are really really cool they have a number of different names so it's the sheltopusic
uh the european glass lizard the european legless there's all sorts of fun things now when you first
look at these guys obviously the first thing you think of it's very confusing that it's actually
a snake but there are a number of things you can use to differentiate with them the very first one
and the obvious one that i like to tell is the external ears if you look there's a little hole
at the back of its head um that's called the auditorium which is essentially in a reptile
lizard turtle alligator crocodilian version of an external ear snakes do have ear drums and they can
here it's just not quite the same as these guys are weak in here as well as well as they have
eyelids and they have a different type of tongue it actually looks very similar to like say a
skink's tongue where it's much wider flatter thicker he might do it we'll see if he does it
or not and it has a very slight fork at the end of it other than the fact that it doesn't look like
he has any legs they share a lot of commonality with most other species of lizards they have very
you're okay buddy they have very strong jaws they love to eat a lot of different prey items they
like snails eggs ground nesting birds lizards small rodents all sorts of little fun things
they kind of eat all sorts of stuff they are diurnal like many lizard species so if you're
keeping them in captivity you're obviously gonna need that full spectrum uva and uvb lighting
these guys are really fun interesting fact about these guys don't munch me little boy
if you look right here this is where his cloaca is all of this from this way over is all his
tail they have very long tails it's usually a little bit long it's longer than the rest
of their body most of the time and while these guys may look like they're very clumsy climbers
um they do use that to kind of help them move around over long uh over fallen logs and rocks
and places like that um they don't really like handling too much and as you can see he's kind of
death rolling on me a little bit um death rowing similar to like what crocodiles and stuff do to
you know tear pieces of their prey off he's just trying to get away from me they do have very
strong jaws which is why i prefer him not to munch on me a little bit because i do break up like
snail shells and stuff so you know if you have a gaming lizard you can also feed one of these guys
another little fun fact about them is that they're actually not truly legless actually
a lot of the species of the legless lizards are in fact not truly legless they have what is
close to what would be we consider like vestigial limbs right there at the back of their cloaca
which maybe i'll get a picture of uh and i'll throw it up right here but a lot of them have that
they're much smaller than say like a lot of like the boad like the python and the boa spurs
um but they do in fact have tiny tiny what would be considered legs you're okay buddy you're okay
you're okay um they as i said before they don't really like handling but they are still really
cool they're just an interesting species of lizard if you're going to keep them give them plenty
of space a 4x2 enclosure i think is a good start give them plenty of places to hide under and crawl
around under large pieces of cork bark a lot like little cork tubes um i've even seen people take
like just pieces of like a large piece of plastic um they can be easily cleaned and washed off and
they'll use that um give them a wide variety of mixed foods so um they have prepared lizard diets
like blue tongue skin food they'll eat they love eggs they'll eat all sorts of different insects
dubia roaches crickets all sorts of different worms they're really really fun and interesting
species of lizard unfortunately most of these guys are wild caught because not too many people
are able to produce them in fact i there's only a handful of people around the world that have ever
been able to produce them and part of the reason is because for a very long time um we couldn't
actually discern their sex very easily was very difficult to sex them for a very long time
essentially what you had to do was either pay for a dna test or you would just put a group of them
together and see what when copulation happens however and i briefly mentioned this at the
unboxing video and several people i've heard tell me that there are several other actual dimorphic
uh differences between them but i was never quite sure until one of them did in fact send
me a peer-reviewed uh data and study that they did and they found that of the three species the
three subspecies every single one of them did fall into this and so this is our male what they found
is that if you look at his brow ridge in his nose it's much more prominent it's more flat it's kind
of more pronounced with females it's much more sloping and it comes down i'll throw a little
graphic of that right here to show the difference that has been confirmed reviewed researched done
all the things and they found that this seems to be a very accurate way of telling up close to 100
of sexual dimorphism between male and female of the european legislatures which is so cool
i was really excited to hear that like i kept hearing it from different people
who had kept them or was really interested in that but because all the research i had done
there was still no like concrete evidence to suggest that i would just kind of say yeah
probably maybe because i didn't want to say yes or no but hey there you go we we looked into it
science says it's there so that's the opinion that i'm going to spread as well as that um if you want
i can put the link for it down in the description of this video so you guys can check out the full
study it's really really interesting and cool but that's all i really had to say
about these guys i've always wanted the legislators i thought it was really cool
number one just because i like weird and oddball species in general but number two they make such
an amazing ambassador animal hopefully once they get a little bit more accustomed uh to handling
and stuff that makes really cool you know when i took this guy to an educational uh program
the other day the kids absolutely lost their minds it was so cool and actually one of them
even knew what it was like a little nine-year-old girl knew uh what he was it was really cool and
really fun i love to be able to spread and share that information it was so so much fun but these
guys are really fun oh and i should make another note i did touch on it that most of them are in
fact wild caught so a lot of them they will come in with a good amount of size on them
because they're hard to find when they're really little they'll just bury down under the ground
um they will come in a little bit scarred up so when they first come in you do need to keep an
eye on them for both internal external parasites as well as you need to monitor those scars and
scratches and stuff to make sure that they aren't infected or have any other issues with that so you
know just being a responsible reptile pet owner but with all that in mind i do think they are
really cool species they are diurnal and they're very active so if you give them a really cool
uh enclosure you can see them out all day long just kind of cruising and munching you'll see them
bask under their uh uva and b lights as well as under the heat don't get them too too hot
they're really really cool species i am so excited i'm really excited that i have my pair
um the females actually in shed right now um and i'm very very very much looking forward to because
uh i think i in this place i'm gonna have a much better like seasonal shift from summer to winter
and i'm hoping that once they get comfortable this year or maybe next year come that winter cool down
maybe we'll get some legless lizard eggs we'll see i'd love to be able to add my name to that
list of people who have successfully bred them or at least shown some sort of mating or you know
we'll see what happens either way really excited i'm really happy that i got these guys he's really
cool thank you so much for mostly behaving for me today that's so so amazing really cool if you guys
have any questions comments concerns please let me know down at the bottom of this video
check out all my other instagram um if you're interested in merch or any other cool stuff email
me at jzsreptiles@gmail.com so j-z-s reptiles gmail.com um this one should be coming out before
our loveland reptile expo at the show me reptiles expo if anybody in colorado or just wants to come
out for a fun weekend road trip i know gas is expensive so i'm not going to force that on
anybody but if anybody wants to come out and see us we'll be doing lots of reptile education shows
won't have any animals for sale but i will have a little bit of merch and some fun goodies and
things as well as just be really fun to just chat with some reptile people it's still going to be a
really fun weekend and i greatly look forward to it hopefully i might see some people there anyway
hope you enjoyed this video hope you're having a great day and we and we will check you next time