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Their tail will regrow over time. They hibernate from October to March. Be careful when cleaning the garden during Autumn and Winter. If you do find any, leave them where they are and move onto another area of the garden. Search for: Search. Slow Warm, aka Legless Lizard. Pregnancy Males take 4 years to reach sexual maturity and 5 years for female. The female will then go on to give birth to live young. Slow worms burrow underground or find a crevice in a rotting tree stump to hibernate in over the winter, usually from October to March.
Slow worms are widespread throughout Britain, although they are absent from Ireland. They favour humid conditions and shaded areas, such as rough grassland, woodland edges, gardens, meadows and heathland.
Keep an eye out for these legless lizards basking in the sun on warm days, in the woods or even in your own garden. They favour compost heaps, using the warmth to heat up their bodies. Slow worms are protected under the Wildlife and Countryside Act, , meaning it is an offence to kill, injure or sell them. The adder is the UK's only venomous snake, but it's incredibly shy of people. Discover its little known mating rituals, unusual facts, folklore and more. The common lizard is a speedy little fella, often seen basking in the sun.
Find out how to spot it, what it eats and how it breeds. Grass snakes are the UK's most common snake species. Find out what they eat, where they live and how they breed. Slow worms have a slightly notched tongue. They have to open their mouth slightly to stick it out, whereas snakes stick their tongue out through a small gap while their mouth remains closed. Slow worms tend to be smaller than the UK's native snakes.
Adults are up to 50 centimetres long. In comparison, the smooth snake - our smallest snake - can reach 70 centimetres. But this species is very rare. Grass snakes are the most likely to be found in the same habitats as slow worms and they are 90 to centimetres long when fully grown. Adders are unlikely to be confused with slow worms due to their distinctive zig-zag markings.
Read more about UK snakes and how to identify them. Slow worm males are greyish brown and females are brown with dark sides. Smooth snakes as shown here are a similar general colour, but their individual scales look more obvious and their markings are different. They often have dark bars or rows of dots on their back and nearly always have a dark blotch on their head.
Grass snakes have a white or cream and black collar at the base of their head. Like smooth snakes and slow worms, they're harmless to humans. Like snakes, slow worms have scales. But whereas slow worms feel smooth, many snakes have keels on their scales that make them rough to the touch.
The smooth snake is an exception. Snakes in Britain have overlapping scales. Slow worms don't. Both snakes and slow worms shed their skin as they grow.
But unlike snakes, slow worms shed their skin in patches rather than all in one go. So if you spot smaller pieces of reptile skin, it probably belonged to a slow worm rather than a snake. Slow worms are unique in the UK for being legless lizards, but leglessness is not actually that unusual a trait. Mark explains, 'Quite a lot of lizard species around the world have no legs, including close relatives of our slow worm in the family Anguidae. A lot more have only tiny legs.
This is associated with elongate bodies and burrowing or living in long grass. This is certainly true of slow worms, which spend much of their time burrowing into loose soil and decaying vegetation. Come October, they tunnel underground to hibernate and remain there until March. Slow worms like to burrow down into the soil beneath rocks and logs. This young slow worm was exposed when the object covering it was lifted. Slow worms are on the menu for many animals, including adders, hedgehogs, badgers, magpies and lots of other birds.
They often fall foul of pet cats too. Research shows that slow worms use their tongues to sense the presence of ambush predators, flicking their tongues in and out to 'smell', like snakes. They are able to tell the difference between the scent of a predator snake and other harmless species. Slow worms are able to detect the presence of predators such as smooth snakes with their tongues and act accordingly.
Unfortunately for this slow worm it still wound up as dinner. To avoid meeting an untimely end, slow worms employ various defence mechanisms. Sometimes they freeze. Other times they will flee. Despite their name, slow worms can move quite quickly. But if they can't get away, defecation is the first weapon in their arsenal.
Their poo smells nasty enough to deter some predators. If pooing doesn't work, slow worms use another nifty trick to escape predators: they detach their tail. The discarded tail thrashes about for several minutes, distracting their attacker and giving the slow worm the chance to get away. Slow worms are named after this ability - the 'fragilis' part of Anguis fragilis means 'fragile'. Mark says, 'The ability to lose a tail has undoubtedly saved lives countless times.
All our lizard species have this ability, but our snakes can't do the same trick. The ability to shed an appendage is called autotomy. But while it can have the immediate benefit of saving the animal's life, missing a limb has its disadvantages and having to regrow one can be costly.
Slow worms have a lot of predators, including badgers. Sometimes slow worms are able to put them off by pooing or distract them by detaching their tail. Slow worms have a very different diet to snakes, making a meal of much smaller prey. Slow worms snack on a variety of invertebrates, including slugs, snails, spiders and earthworms. Although they pick mainly slow-moving prey, their backward curving teeth are perfect for keeping hold of any wriggly or slippery critters.
During mating rituals, an amorous male slow worm bites the back of his chosen female. Once he has gripped her, the pair entwine their bodies to facilitate copulation. Courtship can be a drawn-out process for slow worms - they writhe around like this for up to 10 hours. Female slow worms sometimes bear scars from previous erotic embraces. Mark adds, 'This sort of embrace is not uncommon in lizards, including those with legs - common lizards do it too.
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