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Slender glass lizard

Ophisaurus attenuatus · Lizards · Reptiles

Slender glass lizard (Ophisaurus attenuatus): Legless with movable eyelids, external ear openings and a lateral groove; tail more than half of length; adults 57-107 cm. Narrow dark stripes below the lateral groove and under the tail; young and medium-sized animals have a dark middorsal stripe or dashes. This profile does not establish whether taking it is legal anywhere.

Check rules for a place and date

Certified rules currently represented in Hunt: coverage in development. This is coverage, not a legal answer.

Scientific name
Ophisaurus attenuatus
Family
Anguidae
In North America
Native
Range
Eastern and central United States, from the southern end of Lake Michigan and Wisconsin south through Texas and eastward to the Atlantic coast; Wisconsin populations are disjunct. Not in Canada.
Biology

How to identify it

Legless with movable eyelids, external ear openings and a lateral groove; tail more than half of length; adults 57-107 cm. [1][2]

Narrow dark stripes below the lateral groove and under the tail; young and medium-sized animals have a dark middorsal stripe or dashes. [1][2]

Old adults may be brown with irregular dark-bordered crossbands; males become flecked whitish and can look salt-and-pepper. [1][2]

Compared with the eastern glass lizard: Eastern glass lizard has no stripe on the middle of the back and no stripes below the lateral groove. [1][2]

Compared with the snakes (legless look-alikes): Glass lizards have eyelids and ear openings, rigid bodies and very long tails; snakes have fixed eye coverings and no ear openings. [1][2]

Species it is confused with

Check these before deciding what you are looking at. If you are not certain what it is, do not shoot.

Field notes

  • Identification Confirm a slender glass lizard before you act. Compared with the eastern glass lizard: Eastern glass lizard has no stripe on the middle of the back and no stripes below the lateral groove.[1][2]
Field knowledge

Where it lives

Open grassland, prairie, woodland edge, oak savanna, longleaf pine flatwoods and fallow fields, often on sandy soil. [1][2]

Field knowledge

How it behaves

Mostly diurnal, occasionally crepuscular or nocturnal; surface activity is triggered by warm summer rains; often seen on roads in spring. [1][2]

Eats grasshoppers, crickets, katydids, beetles, spiders, snails and occasionally eggs and small vertebrates; forages on and under the ground. [1][2]

Tail breaks off readily (almost 80% of adults in one study had a regrown tail); overwinters in burrows below the frost line. [1][2]

Regulatory handoff

Limited legal take

Legal take of this species exists only under narrow conditions — a quota, a draw, a permit, a small area, or animals released or held on private land — set by the authorities below. Nowhere else is a legal opportunity implied, and Hunt shows one only where a certified rule establishes it.

Where legal take is listed

Being listed is not an open season. Seasons, zones, licences, methods and limits decide whether this animal may be taken on a given day and place — check Hunt or the authority before you go. Listings read 2026-09-30.

Geospatial intelligence

Where it is found

Eastern and central United States, from the southern end of Lake Michigan and Wisconsin south through Texas and eastward to the Atlantic coast; Wisconsin populations are disjunct. Not in Canada.

Biology

Sources

Every claim above is attributed to one of these published sources.

  1. NatureServe · reviewed 2026-09-30

    NatureServe

  2. University of Michigan Museum of Zoology, Animal Diversity Web · reviewed 2026-09-30

    University of Michigan Museum of Zoology, Animal Diversity Web