Pygopus lepidopodus (Common Scaly-foot)
Common name: Common Scaly-foot
SVL: 240mm. Total length: 800mm
Common Scaly-foot is one of five species of scaly-foot legless-lizards (Pygopus). It is mostly active at dusk or dawn (crepuscular - meaning twilight), it can be nocturnal after high daytime temperatures. It lives in long grasses, heaths, and woodlands, and is most often seen on warm mornings, foraging for food. When threatened, it flashes its thick, fleshy tongue, in an apparent mimicry of snakes. Its diet includes a variety of invertebrates such as burrowing spiders and may also eat other lizards and vegetable matter.
It is variable in colours and pattern, it occasionally is grey with black spots or sometimes coppery brown with a grey tail. Other patterns and variations occur. Prominent limb flaps may be seen on close inspection, hence the name ‘scaly-foot’.
Distribution: Widely scattered mostly in southern Australia. There are a few records in the Canberra region.
Pygopus lepidopodus is listed in the following regions:
Canberra & Southern Tablelands | Southern Highlands | South Coast | New South Wales North Coast
Species information
- Pygopus lepidopodus Scientific name
- Common Scaly-foot Common name
- Not Sensitive
- Local native
- Non-Invasive
- Up to 405.2m Recorded at altitude
- Machine learning
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