Slow worm

Anguis fragilis, Hazelworm, Blindschleiche, Orvet, Lucion

Intro

An animal that is neither a worm, nor a snake, yet is called one and often confused with the other. Why is it neither a worm, nor a snake? Because it is a lizard. Unlike worms, it has a spine, and unlike snakes, it has eyelids. This beautiful creature is one of my favorites to encounter during an excursion. They are stunning, smooth and forgiving (if you handle them with care).

Body

Long cylinders. Just a noodle with eyes, and important detail, eyelids. These creatures are armored in small, round scales and although they don’t possess the same flexibility as snakes, they slide through your fingers like a knife through butter. Because the scales don’t overlap, there is less room to wiggle, hence less flexible. Slow worms feel similar to the touch as earthworms, just not as moist or squishy. Their head isn’t much wider than their body and though they have ears, the holes are almost always completely covered. What they don’t have, which is an important detail, is limbs, except for a tail. That tail ends in a little hardened, to be frank, useless spike. Slow worms, like a lot of lizards have a tail that can break off. Unfortunately for them, those tails don’t grow back fully. So be careful to not grab them the wrong way.

If you’re thinking these lizards aren’t big or seem quite tiny, you are mistaking. These doodly-eyed noodles grow to be 40-45 centimeters and can easily fit a grain of rice or even a grape in their mouth. As often within nature, the females are bigger than the males. Just a little. Enough for the males to not bother the females when she wants to be left alone. However, males do get the better end of the beauty deal. Where females are brown(ish), with a dark line on the back and darker sides, the males are completely uniform but with blue dotted highlights all over the front part of their body. Not all of them get a lot, but most of them get some. In my personal opinion both sexes look dashing, but the blue highlights give the males that slight edge.

Behavior

These worms are called slow for a reason. They take life day by day. They seem to know they live an average 25 to 30 years in the wild. These scaly dudes and dudettes are not keen on being hasty or breaking any speed records. Slow worms enjoy the slow life. Of course they also prefer a slow meal, no fast food for these guys. A diet consisting mostly of snails, earthworms and other minimal paced insects is their share. These lizards love to inspect the air with their thick forked tongue before even taking a nibble. They love to take their time for everything.

One place the slow worm humbles us all, is in the bedroom. These romantic reptilians love a passionate mating that lasts about 10 hours. If the female isn’t satisfied after that, she can have relations with as many other males as she wants because most females only get pregnant in June anyway. And if a record setting time wasn’t enough, these men are equipped with a hemipenis (a penis with two ends, a forked penis). Anything that is pink and leaves a male’s body is forked. Sometimes nature is just showing off.

Probably the most interesting thing about their behavior is that their first defense mechanism is to shit on their assailant. They unleash what’s in their bowels upon the creature that dares pick them up. Slow worms enjoy the slow life, but they defecate faster than you could imagine. Fortunately for us, it doesn’t smell that bad. Never worked on me though. Of course, I pick them up in my hands and not my mouth.

Habitat

These down to earth kings and queens love a moisture holding underground with rocky slopes. Anywhere they can burrow and hide underneath heat-collecting things feels like a paradise. They are often found in forested areas with enough open spaces. These speed encumbered friends are quite shy and often find places to enjoy the sun without getting out in the open. They love a black rock or a stone that gathers enough heat to warm them even if they are underneath it. The fewer hours out and about, the fewer threats they have to face.

Name

The name of this creature seems quite insulting, but there is a theory of where its name came from that actually makes them sound cool. The “slow” part comes from “slo” which is a corruption of the word slay. One of the theories suggest that the name was Slay worm, because of the hard pointy end of the tail that sometimes gives little sting or tingle as a defense mechanism. This makes them sound badass. However, another theory tells about the Old English Slawyrm, in which “Sla” means “earthworm” and wyrm means worm, so the earthwormworm. Immediately less cool.

Fortunately the slow worm is also often called blind worm, because it has tiny lizard eyes instead of the big eyes snakes have. Another one is deaf-adder, because they seemingly don’t have ears and look similar to snakes. In German “Blindschleiche” consists of the words “Blind” which means blind and “Schleiche” derived from “schleich” or “to creep silently”. In Dutch they are called “Hazelworm”, probably derived from the color Hazel, or that they were found underneath hazelnut trees (hazelaars). Their latin name Anguis fragilis means brittle snake, probably referring to the fact that it can break of its own tail and that it looks like a snake.

Thanks again for reading, hope you enjoyed it and see you again next Tuesday for biology of the week.