Center for Biological Diversity

For Immediate Release, October 15, 2025

Contact:

Elise Bennett, (727) 755-6950, [email protected]

Endangered Species Protection Sought for Legless Southeastern Lizard

Decline of Longleaf Pine Forests Imperils Mimic Glass Lizard

TALLAHASSEE, Fla.— The Center for Biological Diversity filed a petition with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service today seeking Endangered Species Act protections for the mimic glass lizard. These rare legless lizards currently survive in scattered populations across the Florida Panhandle, southern Alabama and southeastern North Carolina.

“The mimic glass lizard’s plight is a warning that the health and integrity of our southeastern forests is unraveling,” said Elise Bennett, Florida and Caribbean director and senior attorney at the Center. “These charming little legless lizards need healthy, well-managed forests, and so do we. Endangered Species Act protection can drive better management of the forests where these lizards live, benefiting us all.”

Mimic glass lizards have been steadily declining and are at imminent risk of extinction, experts have warned. Their already small and isolated populations are threatened by habitat destruction and degradation, predation, road mortality and climate change.

Mimic glass lizards live in longleaf pine flatwoods and savannas, though they can also be found in nearby hillside seepage bogs — the edges of dome swamps and wet prairies — where they have been observed taking shelter in crayfish burrows. Glass lizard populations remain in only a few isolated places in the lower southeastern coastal plain.

“Species across Florida and the entire Southeast need healthy forests to survive,” said Bennett. “The Trump administration’s disastrous funding cuts and mass layoffs put even more struggling forests at risk of being neglected. That imperils public safety and the web of life that keeps all of us healthy and happy.”

Many endangered and threatened species depend on longleaf pine ecosystems, including frosted and reticulated flatwoods salamanders, red-cockaded woodpeckers, black pinesnakes and eastern indigo snakes.

Longleaf pine forests depend on regular fires for their health. Historically, lighting would naturally ignite these fires, but now forest health depends on “prescribed” fires carried out by knowledgeable land managers. These planned fires boost biodiversity and prevent dangerous wildfires. Recent federal funding cuts, reductions in force, and agency shakeups have created uncertainty about the future of effective fire management on public lands where the lizards live.

The mimic glass lizard (Ophisaurus mimicus) is a small, legless lizard with light speckles and dark black and brown stripes down the back. The animals are named for their close resemblance to eastern slender glass lizards, which can be distinguished only by subtle differences in size, scales and coloring.

Glass lizards are known for breaking off their tails when attacked by predators (or handled by humans), leading to local names like “glass snakes” and “joint snakes.” They can later regenerate their tails.

The Center for Biological Diversity is a national, nonprofit conservation organization with more than 1.8 million members and online activists dedicated to the protection of endangered species and wild places.

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