The yellowbell lizard is not a snake! Description and photo of an amazing creature. The largest lizard of the Crimea. Crimean poisonous yellow-bellied
He has no legs, so outwardly he looks very much like a snake.
However, the yellowbell is easy to distinguish: its eyelids are mobile and allow it to open and close its eyes. Snakes are deprived of such an opportunity: their eyelids are always fused and form a transparent “window”. In addition, the lizard has a very long tail, about 1.5 times the length of the body.
The only reminder that the yellowbell's ancestors once had legs are small papillae on the sides of the cloacal slit. These are vestiges of the hind limbs, probably playing no role in the life of the lizard.
SUBCUTANEOUS ARMOR
Yellowbell is the only representative of the genus of armored spindles. Like other spindle lizards, its body is covered with large tiled scales, and the abdominal shields differ little from the dorsal ones in shape and size. Under this horny cover lie osteoderms (skin ossifications), due to which the body of the yellowbell is firm and elastic to the touch. They form an almost continuous openwork and limited movable bone shell, similar to chain mail. Hence the name of the genus - armored spindles. There is a gap between the ventral and dorsal parts of this integument, due to which longitudinal folds of skin hang on the sides of the yellowbell, extending from the base of the head to the cloacal fissure. They allow the lizard to move very quickly, and in addition, increase the volume of the body when swallowing large prey, and for females when carrying eggs. The short, more or less deeply carved at the anterior end tongue of the yellowbell consists of two segments of different sizes, and the thin anterior part of the lizard can be drawn into a special vagina inside the thicker posterior one.
SOUTHERN CLAM LOVER
Yellowbelly is found from the Balkan Peninsula, Asia Minor and Western Asia in the west, to Iraq in the east. Dwells on south coast Crimea, the Caucasus, Central Asia and in the South. Inhabits various biotopes: from floodplain thickets and foothill woodlands to steppes, semi-deserts and rocky slopes. Often lives near water bodies, in case of danger it can go into the water, swims well. Does not avoid the proximity of a person, mastering gardens and vineyards. The lizard is active during the day, it spends the dark time of the day and the hottest daytime hours in shelters: rodent burrows, voids under stones, dense thickets of shrubs.
Yellowbell is omnivorous. Strong jaws and powerful, blunt teeth allow it to easily cope with both large insects and terrestrial gastropods, often forming the basis of his diet. Even large grape snails with a strong shell are defenseless against him. Mouse-like rodents, bird eggs and chicks, small lizards and snakes can become prey for the yellow-tubby. Sometimes he also uses plant foods, such as apricot carrion and grape berries.
In turn, these lizards, despite their large size and bone "chain mail", often become prey birds of prey and mammals. A yellowbell with a tail damaged or torn off by someone is a fairly common sight. In some populations, the proportion of such individuals can reach up to 50%. Interestingly, the tail of the armored spindles is not brittle: to tear off or bite off it, you need to make great efforts. Again, it does not grow back, remains dull, as if chopped off. Lizards with short tails can no longer move so quickly on the ground and crawl onto the lower branches of trees and shrubs as their healthy counterparts.
CARING MOTHER
Males of this reptile are found in nature approximately 2-4 times more often than females, which spend more time in shelters. Shortly after wintering, which lasts from October-November to March-April, the breeding season begins in yellowfins. The male actively searches for the female and, during mating, holds her by the head with his jaws. In June-July, the lizard lays eggs in a hole or other shelter. In one clutch there are from 6 to 12 of them, they weigh about 20 g and are covered with a dense leathery shell.
Cubs 10-12.5 cm long hatch in August-September. They are colored differently than adults: on a yellowish-gray background there is a pattern of dark transverse zigzag stripes extending over the head and tail. This coloration is preserved in lizards up to 20 cm long and from molt to molt is gradually replaced by an adult.
Cubs are extremely difficult to see even in those places where the number of the species is quite large and you can meet 5-10 adults per day. This is probably due to their secretive lifestyle. In addition, females do not participate in breeding every year, which means that the number of cubs is not so large. Puberty in yellow-bellied comes at the age of 3-4 years with a body length of more than 30 cm.
YELLOWTUBE AND MAN
Due to the resemblance to a snake of this large, but completely harmless lizard, a meeting with a person sometimes ends in death for her. The caught yellowbell tries to slip out of the hands, wriggling with the whole body or quickly rotating in one direction. At the same time, a characteristic creak of the plates of the bone shell rubbing against each other is heard. Despite the powerful jaws, the yellowbell almost never bites. Its only defense is the spraying of unpleasantly smelling liquid feces, forcing the "dirty" lizard to drop.
There are known cases of illegal capture and sale of yellowbellies for keeping in terrariums by unscrupulous pet dealers. Many lizards die on the roads under the wheels of cars, as well as in various wells, trenches and similar structures, where they fall and can no longer get out. The species is listed in the Red Books of Kazakhstan and; in Russia - in the Red Books Krasnodar Territory, Ingushetia, North Ossetia and Kalmykia.
The female yellow-bellied guards the eggs laid by her in a dark, damp shelter, wrapping her body around them. Such care for offspring is extremely atypical for lizards.
A BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF
Type: reptile
Order: lizards.
Family: spindle lizards.
Genus: armored spindles.
View: yellowbell.
Latin name: Pseudopus apodus.
Size: body length with tail - up to 125 cm.
Weight: up to 500 g.
Coloring: yellow-red-brown, belly - lighter.
Life expectancy of a yellowbell: up to 30 years.
The second legless lizard of the spindle family known in Europe and Russia is the yellow-bellied lizard. By origin, it is very far from the spindle.
yellowbell lizard
This is a very large lizard. The record length for the species is 144 cm (with tail). Tail about twice longer than torso. The head of the yellowbell passes into the body without the slightest hint of a cervical interception. It has a shape characteristic of lizards, uniformly tapering towards the tip of the muzzle. The rudiments of the hind limbs are preserved in the yellowbell, which do not play any role in his life. The teeth are very characteristic - powerful, blunt, adapted to crushing. The body of the yellowbell is hard and inflexible, as it is covered with large ribbed scales, under which there are bone plates about 5x5 millimeters in size, forming a bone shell. Because of this feature, the genus that includes the yellowbell is called "armored spindles". There is a gap between the abdominal and dorsal parts of the bone chain mail, which from the outside looks like a lateral longitudinal fold of the skin. It is formed by one or two rows of smaller scales without a bone base. Thanks to these folds, a slightly greater mobility of the body is provided. In addition, folds allow you to increase the volume of the body when eating or when carrying eggs.
Adult yellow-bellies are colored in yellow and brown tones. On this background are sometimes scattered small dark spots. The underside of the body is lighter. Young yellowbellies look completely different: they are striped. The background color of their body is yellowish gray, the stripes are dark, transverse, zigzag.
Where does the yellowbell live?
Yellowbelly is a southern lizard. In Europe, it is found only on the Balkan Peninsula and in the Crimea; widely distributed in Asia Minor and the Middle East, Central Asia and southern Kazakhstan. In Russia, it is known from the Krasnodar and Stavropol Territories, Kalmykia and Dagestan.
In the areas of its distribution, the yellowbell uses a variety of open spaces habitats: steppes and semi-deserts, mountain slopes, sparse forests, vineyards and abandoned fields. It occurs at altitudes up to 2300 meters. He has daily activity, and he often catches your eye - crawls out onto roads, climbs into buildings. In contrast to the shade-loving and humidity-loving spindle, the yellowbell prefers dry and sunny biotopes. But on the other hand, he willingly enters shallow water and can stay in the water for a long time, although he practically cannot swim. At night and on a hot afternoon, the yellowbell hides in thickets of bushes, under objects lying on the ground, in heaps of stones. In some places, yellowbellies are a common and common lizard.
Despite the relatively little flexibility of the body, the yellowbell can crawl with quite high speed. At the same time, it intensively wriggles in waves with a large amplitude, and, having overcome several meters, stops for a short while. Then the next powerful jerk, and again a short pause. Such crawling is markedly different from the smooth and uniform movement of snakes. The yellowbell has to move a lot - in a day he masters the territory with a radius of about 200 meters.
What do yellowbells eat?
Yellowbelly is one of the few lizards specialized in feeding on certain “products”. Powerful jaws and developed blunt teeth are adapted to crush the outer shells of animals, primarily molluscs. Both in nature and in captivity, yellowbellies prefer this particular prey. If the spindle chooses naked slugs or cunningly pulls snails out of the shells, then the yellowbell simply cracks through their “houses” like a nutcracker. Even such large mollusks with a thick shell, like the grape snail, are defenseless against the yellowbell. He is actively looking for his prey. Having noticed it, it can creep up very slowly and then, from a distance of several centimeters, rush at it with lightning speed with its mouth wide open, which, as it were, covers the victim from above. He not only crushes snails with his jaws, but also, holding them in his mouth, crushes them against nearby stones. Swallowed shells and their fragments are digested in the stomach of the yellowbell. Just like snails, the yellowbell bites through large hard insects - beetles, orthopterans. On occasion, he will eat a bird's egg, and a chick, and a mouse-like rodent, and a toad, a lizard, and even a snake. He tries to crush the captured prey, quickly spinning around his axis, so that the victim is crushed on the ground. Like spindles, two yellowbellies, grabbing one prey from both ends, can, rotating in different sides, to break it "brotherly". Unlike the spindle, the yellowbell includes plant foods in its diet, for example, apricot carrion, vizhnrad berries. The omnivorous yellowbell eats even carrion - a rare food for reptiles; in nature, they observed how the yellowbells tried to swallow the corpses of pikas and magpies.
Reproduction of yellow-bellies
About social and marital behavior almost nothing is known about the yellowbell. In captivity, lizards of this species are peaceful towards each other and towards snakes kept together with them. Males are much more common in nature than females. Perhaps females are less active and spend more time in shelters.
The yellowbell has powerful jaws, but rarely uses them for defense. Taken in hand, he tries to free himself with the help of energetic writhing and rotation around his axis. The enemy can also be doused with excrement.
These lizards reproduce by laying eggs. In laying 6-10 large eggs in an elastic white shell; their length is 3-4 centimeters, width is 1.5-2 centimeters. A case was noted when a female guarded her clutch, wrapping herself around her, as some snakes do. Young yellowbellies about 10 centimeters long hatch in a month and a half. It remains a mystery why adults in their habitats are common and often found animals, and their juveniles are extremely rarely seen. Perhaps this is due to the so far unknown features of the biology of young yellowbellies.
Like the spindle, when shedding, the yellowbell shifts the dead layers of the skin to the tail.
Large size and bone "chain mail" protect adult animals from most natural predators. They are attacked by some birds, as well as foxes and dogs. Yellowfins do not regenerate. In nature, you can find a lot of individuals with traces of injuries and torn ends of the tails. In some populations, the proportion of such persons with disabilities is as high as 50 percent. Obviously, the main culprits of these injuries are predators, grabbing lizards by their long tails when they crawl into shelters that do not fit entirely, and the defenseless tail is left outside. Hedgehogs are especially dangerous in this regard - they cannot cope with a large and strong lizard, but they can easily tear off or bite off a piece of its tail. It is possible that the yellowbell's tail freezes during sudden frosts. It is also possible that yellowbellies themselves can inflict injuries on each other in fights or during mating.
Injured and tailless lizards do not differ from healthy ones either in behavior or in the nature of activity.
Many of these lizards are destroyed by man in his eternal struggle with snakes. They are also caught for keeping in captivity (yellow-bellies live well in terrariums and in open-air cages). But a person inflicts no less damage indirectly: yellow-bellies die on the roads, fall into various pits, ditches, structures from which they cannot get out.
In the southern regions of our country - in the Stavropol and Kuban, as they are also called Krasnodar region, as well as in the Republic of Dagestan - you can see the amazing creation of nature. Those who meet for the first time yellow-bellied(namely, this creature is in question), they mistakenly take him for a snake.
In fact, the yellow-bellied lizard (Pseudopus apodus) is a legless lizard. If you take a closer look, then in the place where the hind legs should be, you can find only subtle processes. Probably, once these were indeed limbs, but the lizard did not need them, and therefore disappeared.
The main differences between the yellowbell and the snake are the presence of movable eyelids above the eyes and the absence of poisonous teeth. However, people often mistake the yellowbell for a snake and, upon discovering it, try to get rid of it. And very in vain, because this creature, perhaps outwardly and not entirely attractive, but completely harmless and very useful.
Favorite habitats of yellow-tubs - open spaces: steppes, semi-deserts and deserts, fields. Although sometimes they can be found on mountain slopes and in places overgrown with dense bushes, it is easier to hide there.
Yellowback is a fairly large lizard. Adults often grow up to one and a half meters in length. Compressed on the sides, their elongated body imperceptibly flows into the tail. This reptile has no neck at all, and the head, which is not at all like a snake, merges with the body. The muzzle of the lizard is narrowed at the end.
This creature cannot be called flexible, because its entire body is covered with large ribbed scales. Under them are hard plates that form a bone shell.
There is a small gap between the ventral and dorsal sections of the bone shell, which consists of several rows of small scales without a solid base and looks like a skin fold from the outside. It gives the body of the lizard mobility and increases its size when the reptile eats or bears eggs. The yellowbell teeth are blunt and very powerful, capable of grinding even the hard bones of the victim.
Adult lizards have brown or yellow skin, sometimes diluted with spots. Young growth distinguishes large quantity mottled. The belly of the yellow-bellied belly is light yellow, hence, in fact, the name of the reptile.
These amazing creatures feed mainly on mollusks (especially snails) and various insects, as well as small rodents, toads, snakes, other lizards, chicks and bird eggs. Sometimes carrion is also included in the menu of the yellowbell.
It is very interesting to watch how the lizard hunts. Grabbing the prey, she begins to rapidly rotate in one place and does this until the unfortunate victim is dizzy and she loses her senses. After that, the yellow-bellied leisurely proceeds to the meal.
In summer, a legless lizard has offspring. In mid-July, the female lays eggs, from which cubs are born after about a month and a half.
Yellowbellies are useful in that they destroy a large number of small rodents, which, having bred, cause great harm to agriculture.
As an endangered species, the yellowbell is listed in the Red Book of Ukraine and in the Red Book of Kazakhstan. As endangered, it is listed in the Red Book of the Krasnodar Territory. Protected in the Aksu-Zhabagly nature reserve, in nature reserves Yalta mountain and forest, "Cape Martyan", Crimean and Kazantip.
This snake belongs to the snake family and therefore cannot be poisonous. The yellow-bellied snake is also called the yellow-bellied or yellow-bellied snake. In Europe larger than a snake no, it can reach a length of two and a half meters. Yellowbelly crawls very fast, has a graceful body and a relatively long tail. The upper part of the body is painted in a solid brown or almost black. On the back of young individuals there is one, and more often two rows of spots
dark in color, in some places they, merging, form transverse stripes. On the head, dark dots merge into a regular one. A number of small spots are also placed on the sides of the snake. Her belly has a grayish-white color with yellow stains located along the edges of the abdominal scutes.
habitats
The yellow-bellied snake prefers to settle in dry places, basking in daytime open sunbeams plots. It is active only during daylight hours. It can hide in bushes, in gardens, vineyards and ruins of buildings. In the mountains it occurs up to a height of 2000 meters, where it hides among rocks on rocky slopes. Yellow-bellied hides not only among stones and thickets of bushes, but also in rodent burrows or in hollows of trees. It climbs well on branches, but does not climb to great heights. Although, in general, he is not afraid of heights and, if necessary, can jump down from a tree or a cliff.
The snake is often found on the banks of water bodies, not because it likes to swim, but due to the presence a large number food in coastal thickets. Sometimes the yellow-bellied snake crawls under a haystack wall or into an outbuilding.
The hunter and his prey
With sharp eyesight, quick reactions and high speed of movement, the snake is a successful hunter. The prey of the snake is most often small mammals, lizards and large insects, such as locusts or their relatives. Devastates birds located on the ground or low on trees and shrubs. The yellow-bellied snake menu is quite diverse, it includes lizards, snakes, birds, rodents.
He even hunts vipers, sometimes receiving bites from them, but, apparently, he does not suffer much from this. Considering the intensity of the hunt of the yellowbell, it can be argued that where it lives, there are no rodents, not even in sight.
Defensive aggressiveness
Usually, faced with a person, the yellow-bellied snake tries to quickly retreat. But after some time, he will definitely return to his original place, especially if his shelter is located there. If there is nowhere to retreat or a person comes close to his shelter, the snake boldly rises to his defense. At the same time, he not only demonstrates his aggressiveness, but also makes jumps towards the enemy. The wide-open mouth, loud hissing and bold attack make an impression. The snake can even bite for some vulnerable spot. The bites are quite strong, but they are a yellow-bellied snake, in fact, a harmless creature, its aggressiveness is forced, and its evil disposition serves as a defense against those who encroach on its territory.
Date: 2011-03-15
R. Pushkin, Moscow
In the mountains of the Caucasus and Central Asia lives a strange creature - yellowbell(Ophisaurus apodus). Seeing it for the first time, anyone will decide that it is a snake: a long, more than 100 cm, cylindrical body, an elongated tail, a characteristic way of moving - all this is the most consistent with our ideas about snakes.
In reality, this is a completely harmless lizard, only legless. True, upon closer examination, one can see on her body small papillary outgrowths on the sides of the base of the tail - the rudiments of the hind limbs. It confirms that the yellowbell belongs to lizards and the presence of ear holes - after all, real snakes are deaf, they have no ears. Yes, and the eyes of the animal have eyelids; it can blink, while snakes even sleep with their eyes open.
Yellowbelly photo
This reptile belongs to the spindle family (Anguidae). including 80 species of lizards living in the countries of South, Central and. partially, North America, North Africa. Southwest, South and South-East Asia. On the territory of the CIS, it is common in the Crimea, the Caucasus and Central Asia, where it is often found in river valleys, bushes and cultivated lands. We also have another representative of the spindle family - the brittle spindle, popularly known as a very poisonous snake, although it is also a completely safe legless lizard.
The second largest lizard in our fauna, second in size only to the gray monitor lizard.
This reptile is active during daylight hours, but on hot days it switches to a twilight lifestyle, willingly goes into the water and bathes for a long time. When frightened, it is able to move very quickly, especially downhill, while in a calm state it moves slowly and clumsily.
A person is truly afraid of panic. If other reptiles crawl away silently and imperceptibly, then the yellowbell makes so much noise, the grass above it sways so much that it is very difficult to confuse it with other reptiles. Perhaps such a non-trivial way of escape is a kind of protective measure, since the lizard, incapable of active defense, imitates large animal hiding in the grass.
When caught, she does not even try to bite, but, rotating along her own base. trying to get out of his hands. If this does not help, then he hangs lifelessly on his hands, closes his eyes, as if saying: I'm dead, throw me away. The only manifestation of a protective reaction on the part of the yellowbell can be considered hissing and sharp movements of the tail, which is twice as long as the body.
During the breeding season (June-July), the female yellowbell lays 6-10 eggs. Of these, in August-September, young animals 100-125 mm long are born. Their slender yellowish-gray bodies are decorated with zigzag transverse stripes. In juveniles, the longitudinal ribs on the scutes are much more distinct than in adults: they merge into long (from the head to the tip of the tail) costal stripes. From this, their bodies look faceted and shimmer in the sun with yellow highlights.
In general, the coloration of young animals very little resembles the dirty yellow or copper-red tones of adult animals. However, the characteristic skin fold located along the sides allows you to accurately determine the species. Unlike other lizards, and even from snakes, the body of the yellow-bellied belly is hard to the touch, as if encased in a shell.
Yellowbelly photo
The diet of yellowbells in nature is made up of invertebrates: snails, beetles, slugs, earthworms. But rodents, lizards, frogs, chicks and bird eggs quite often become part of their menu. Large prey yellow-bellied, holding in strong jaws, stuns with sharp shaking of the head. He does not shy away from carrion. A considerable share in the diet of the lizard is the fruits of various plants.
The variety of food consumed by the yellowbell makes it possible to consider it one of the most omnivorous inhabitants of the terrarium, which does not cause feeding problems to the owner. In captivity, he betrays both living food (mice, frogs, worms, snails), and meat and fish in the form of minced meat or pieces. In the absence of animal food, you can replace it with vegetable food: apples, grapes, grated carrots. And yet, depriving lizards of animal protein is not worth it; vegetable components are best used only as a top dressing for a variety of diet. A good addition are also cottage cheese and White bread, wetted raw egg.
live in captivity for a long time and breed even in small terrariums. For a pair of adult animals, a room with a bottom area of 70x50 cm and a height of about 40 cm is quite enough. Coarse river sand is best used as soil. From the scenery, large heavy stones or snags are suitable, they also serve for shelters.
Be sure to have a reservoir suitable in size not only for drinking, but also for swimming. The pond must be fixed so that your pets cannot turn it over.
Like many reptiles, the yellowbell often defecates into the water, so you need to constantly monitor its cleanliness and replace it in a timely manner.
To heat a terrarium of the specified size, a krypton lamp is sufficient, located in the corner and reliably protected from animals. The power of the lamp is selected so that the air temperature is not lower than 25-27°C. To maintain its stability, you can use an aquarium thermostat. At night, the heating should be turned off to simulate a natural decrease in temperature to 18-20°C.
In addition to heating and lighting, the yellowbell, like other reptiles, needs ultraviolet radiation. Usually, erythema lamps or Photon-type devices are used for this. Sessions are carried out 1-2 times a week for 20-30 minutes from a distance of 50-100 cm. The first procedures should not exceed 5 minutes, then their duration is gradually increased.
Yellowbelly photo
Despite the ease of maintenance, yellowbellies cannot be attributed to animals widespread among hobbyists home content reptiles. One of the main reasons for this is amazing ability lizards make a mess in the terrarium, quickly destroying the scenery created there. It must be remembered that the yellowbell is a strong animal, and the constipation of the terrarium must be strong enough.
At good care regular feeding (2-3 times a week), attentive attitude to animals, you will get real pleasure from observation, learn a lot of interesting things about wonderful world reptiles.
In conclusion, I want to say: having met a yellow-bellied in nature, do not harm him. Remember that this is a useful lizard that destroys great amount mice, grasshoppers and locusts, beetles, leaf beetles, slugs, weevils and other agricultural pests.
Magazine Aquarium 1999 №2