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Rare Glass Lizard Found in a Chinese Park

Chinese glass lizardOn May 20, staffs of Zhuhai Park in Jiangsu Province's Yixing City found a rare animal which resembes a cross between rice field eel and snake besides a hill road in the park. It measured 40 cm long and weighted at 95 gram. Later the snake-like animal was determined to be rare Chinese glass lizard by experts from the School of Biological Sciences in Nanjing Normal University, a species on the Protected Endangered Chinese Wildlife Animal List. Now the reptile has been released to the bamboo forest of Zhuhai Park. link

P.s. Glass Lizard in Wikipedia:
The Glass Lizards or glass snakes, genus Ophisaurus, are a group of reptiles that resemble snakes, but are actually lizards. Although most species have no legs, their head shape and the fact that they have movable eyelids and external ear openings make it obvious that they are lizards. These animals are also known as Glass Snakes or Jointed Snakes. They reach lengths of up to 4 ft, but approximately two-thirds of this is the tail. Glass lizards feed mainly on insects.

Their common name comes from the fact that they are easily broken: like many lizards, they have the ability to deter predation by dropping off part of the tail which can break into several pieces, like glass. The tail remains mobile, while the lizard becomes motionless, distracting the predator, and allowing eventual escape. This serious loss of body mass requires a considerable effort to replace, and the new tail is usually smaller in size than the original.