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Rare legless lizard spotted in Odisha for 4th time

In Buddhakhol hill in Buguda in Ganjam district, the Snake Helpline spotted a highly rare and elusive legless lizard. Harish Padhi, a local Buguda rescuer, sent a photo to Subhendu Mallik, general secretary of Snake Helpline and Honorary Wildlife Warden of Khurda, for identification in last December. Subhendu was certain it wasn’t a snake and had heard of the limbless lizard that lives on Chilika’s island, but he had never seen a photograph or a specimen.

The Snake Helpline dispatched a four-person team to the place, where they found the legless lizard. They photographed and videotaped the limbless skink in its new natural surroundings to chronicle its life. For three months, a team from the Snake Helpline had to scour the available literature, books, and journal papers. Subhendu then published his findings on Barkudia insularis in a blog on the Snake Helpline website: https://snakehelpline.com/barkudia-insularis/.

This is the state’s fourth sighting of the unusual lizard. Nelson Annandale discovered the limbless skink on Barkuda Island in 1917 and named it Barkudia Insularis, a new genus and species. This unusual species of lizard had eluded scientists and explorers for many years before being discovered in 1979 in Nandankanan Biological Park in Baranga, Odisha.

Chilika Development Authority personnel reported the rare Barkudia Insularis from the same Barkuda island while performing a survey in Chilika Lake in 2003. This lizard was not discovered anyplace in Odisha except for the Barkuda Islands and Nandankanan Biological Park.

‘The Barkuda Limbless Skink is so rare that no identifiable colour photograph or image is available in Google when we searched till date. No photographs are available in the largest database of reptiles in the world, the Reptile Database and the Reptiles of India database till date’, said Subhendu Mallik, general secretary of Snake Helpline.

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Mallik stated that the IUCN Redlist categorised Barkudia insularis as a Critically Endangered species in 2010 and that the species is only one step away from extinction.

Barkudia insularis is thin with a short tail and a narrow, cylindrical body. The lizard’s skull is short and flattened dorso-ventrally, and its snout is wedge-shaped, allowing it to dig tunnels in loose soil with ease. It has a wide range of colours. It is normally glossy brown on top, with a black mark on each scale that joins to form eight to fourteen longitudinal rows along the back and down the tail. The belly is a creamy white colour. The limbless skinks are mistaken for little snakes at first glance.

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