Dibamidae: The Lizard You Never Heard Of
“Blind Skinks”
Lizards. The poster child of reptiles around the world, whether they be iguanas around the equator, Komodo dragons terrorizing the local wildlife in Indonesia, or smaller lizards like bearded dragons and leopard geckos sitting in homes across the world, lizards are an incredibly successful group, being found everywhere across the globe except Antarctica. This success has led to lizards having a species count of 7,000. However, most of these lizards sit in relative obscurity. One of the most obscure lizard groups in the world, and the topic of this article, are the dibamidae, also known as the “blind skinks.”
What are they like?
Dibamids are a group of burrowing lizards native to Southeast Asia, Indonesia, the Philippines, New Guinea, and, surprisingly, Mexico. They contain two genera, Dibamus and Anelytropsis. Dibamus is the genus with all of the species in and around Southeast Asia, while Anelytropsis contains the one Mexican lizard. They’re all less than 25 cm long, have no legs, except small leg flaps the male retains, and also have incredibly small eyes covered with a scale, leading to their name “blind skink”
Why You Haven’t Heard Of Them
Dibamidae, as I mentioned briefly earlier, stay below the ground for most, if not all of their lives, eating small insects and the such, making them very hard to study. They also aren’t incredibly important to study, all things considered. Dibamidae, despite being the most primitive lizards, have changed their characteristics so much to the point where they look less like ancestral lizards than a lot of their more derived counterparts. Regardless, I think dibamidae don’t deserve to be cast to the wasteside just because of the cards they were dealt. They’re really cool little things and I think more people should know about them.
