Reptile & Amphibian Forums

[This is a repost as something went wrong with the formatting on the other one...]

A snake we saw while visiting the "Genting Scenic Area" in south-east China. at about 700 M Above Sea Level.
It was pretty small, maybe 30cm-40cm long (1ft - 1ft 3") and about 1cm(0.4inch) wide.

The place is called "云顶风景区", i just translated it to english. Google maps couldn't find it in english.

This is not a snake at all, actually. It is a legless lizard, in the genus Ophisaurus, possibly O.harti, which is found in China. These lizards are often called "glass lizards" because of their shiny appearance and their extra-long tails, which are designed to break off very easily if the lizard is attacked, allowing the lizard to crawl away while a predator is occupied by the still-twitching severed tail. The lizard can regenerate its tail afterward. The scales are one clue that it's not a snake, along with the presence of its eye lids and ear openings, which no snake has.

Thanks a lot!
I've tried to find out what it was for a while.
I just assumed it was a small snake as it looked like one.
And after taking the pictures, a man came over with a large branch, saying in Chinese something like: "That's a very venomous snake".
Then he knocked the the "dangerous snake" off the stairs on the mountain side. And it fell 10 meters down.(I hope it survived...)

It never occurred to me that it was a lizard.