Last week’s object was totally unrelated to natural history, but this week I am returning to my area of interest. Any idea what this might be:
(Length across specimen approx 45cm)
It’s a bit of an easy one, but next week I’ll make up for it with something a more difficult.
As usual you can ask questions or make your suggestions in the comments section below – I’ll do my best to answer, but I won’t be in the office for most of the day, so I can’t guarantee a rapid response. Good luck!
Zygoma 
It’s an ex-snake
Or the dragon St George killed
Maybe I should have used Aprilpleurosaurus primus to keep with the St George’s dragon theme…
It’s one of those catwalk snakes. Reticulated python?(just like the word reticulated)
Reticulated is indeed a very fine word. Unfortunately it doesn’t apply to this specimen!
It’s not a snake, but a legless lizard, one of the Pygopodidae.
Any chance of a scale bar?
Slowworm?
Scale is added in text – as you can now see, it’s a bit big for a slow worm.
it would be easier if we knew the size.
Size added.
Yep, fully agree with Gimpy on this one, the ‘tail’ is really rather long for a snake.
I reckon it is, as Gimpy says, a Pygopod, and perhaps quite a large one – Lialis burtonis (Burton’s snake lizard)?
It’s not a Pygopod.
I would have said it was a snake, but I know how sneaky biologists are so “lizard with no legs” is a definite possibility here…
It is a lizard with no legs, but then again, since snakes evolved from lizards (probably varanids) they can also be considered to be legless lizards in the same way that birds can be considered to be dinosaurs.
We use complicated names for legless lizards; obviously they cannot handle their drink 😉
Is it an eel?
The ribs are wrong for an eel – they’d stick straight up, whereas these these form a cage.
Ok, different family, how about an Anguid, like Sheltopusik (Ophisaurus apodus)?
That tail looks pretty autotomic – I think Ophisaurus apodus is a very good guess.