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Ophisaurus attenuatus BAIRD, 1880

IUCN Red List - Ophisaurus attenuatus - Least Concern, LC
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Higher TaxaAnguidae (Anguinae), Diploglossa, Anguimorpha, Sauria, Squamata (lizards)
SubspeciesOphisaurus attenuatus attenuatus COPE 1880
Ophisaurus attenuatus longicaudus MCCONKEY 1952 
Common NamesE: Slender Glass Lizard
attenuatus: Western Slender Glass Lizard
longicaudus: Eastern Slender Glass Lizard 
SynonymOphisaurus attenuatus BAIRD in COPE 1880: 18
Ophisaurus ventralis attenuatus var. sulcatus COPE 1880: 18
Ophisaurus attenuatus — BOULENGER 1885: 282
Ophisaurus attenuatus var. sulcatus — BOULENGER 1885: 282
Ophisaurus attenuatus attenuatus — MCCONKEY 1954: 147
Ophisaurus attenuatus attenuatus — FOUQUETTE & DELAHOUSSAYE 1966
Ophisaurus attenuatus — CONANT & COLLINS 1991: 139
Ophisaurus attenuatus attenuatus — COLLINS & TAGGART 2009
Ophisaurus attenuata — LEMOS-ESPINAL 2015: 440

Ophisaurus attenuatus longicaudus MCCONKEY 1952
Ophisaurus attenuatus longicaudus — SCHMIDT 1953: 138
Ophisaurus attenuatus longicaudus — WERMUTH 1969: 30
Ophisaurus attenuatus longicaudus — PALMER & BRASWELL 1995
Ophisaurus attenuatus longicaudus — COLLINS & TAGGART 2009
Ophisaurus attenuatus longicaudus — GUYER et al. 2018 
DistributionUSA (E Texas, Oklahoma, E Kansas, SE Nebraska, S/E Iowa, Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee, SW Kentucky, SE Virginia, Illinois, S Wisconsin)

attenuatus: West of Mississippi, Illinois, Texas. Type locality: Texas; neotype locality: Cook [= Cooke] County, Texas,” with no further data. The Ragsdale family farm was established in 1867 about 5 kilometers southeast of Gainesville, but the collector’s County Surveyor duties took him to many parts of Cooke County over 1870–1878 (Casto 1980).

longicaudus: SE Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, west to the Mississippi, northward to Kentucky. Type locality: “12 miles southwest of Newton, Baker County, Georgia."

sulcatus (invalid): Type locality: Dallas, Texas  
Reproductionoviparous 
TypesNeotype: USNM 15537, a male (designated by McConkey 1954; originally no type specimen designated)
Holotype: AMNH 71305, male [longicaudus]
Holotype: ANSP 12755 [sulcatus] 
DiagnosisDiagnosis (attenuatus): An Ophisaurus differing from other North American members of the genus by the following characters taken in combination: the white marks on the scales occupy the miiddle of the scales, and the unregenerated tail of the adult is less than 2.4 times the body length [McConkey 1954: 147]


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CommentLimb morphology: Limbless.

Synonymy: The form sulcatus is a synonym of O. attenuatus attenuatus according to SCHMIDT 1953.

History: The name attenuatus was first published by Cope (1880), but he clearly stated that it was a manuscript name of Baird's. It was also brought out that Baird distinguished attenuatus from ventralis by the number of longi- tudinal series of dorsal scales; the former having 14, and the latter 16. O. attenuatus was further defined as being a western race. 
EtymologyNamed after Latin attenuatus = made thin, slender, in reference to the elongate body and tail (after Beltz 2006) 
References
  • Bartlett, R. D. & Bartlett, P. 1999. A Field Guide to Texas Reptiles and Amphibians. Gulf Publishing Co., Houston, Texas, 331 pp.
  • Blair, Albert P. 1961. Notes on Ophisaurus attenuatus attenuatus (Anuguidae). Southwestern Naturalist 6 (3-4): 201 - get paper here
  • Bogosian, Victor; Eric C. Hellgren, and Raymond W. Moody 2012. Assemblages of Amphibians, Reptiles, and Mammals on an Urban Military Base in Oklahoma. Southwestern Naturalist 57 (3): 277-284. - get paper here
  • Boulenger, G.A. 1885. Catalogue of the lizards in the British Museum (Natural History). Vol. 2, Second edition. London, xiii+497 pp. - get paper here
  • Camper, Jeffrey D. 2019. The Reptiles of South Carolina. University of South Carolina Press, 288 pp. [review in Copeia 107 (3): 590, 2019] - get paper here
  • Camposano, Brian J. and Elizabeth A. Smith. 2014. Geographic Distribution: Ophisaurus attenuatus (slener glass lizard). Herpetological Review 45 (2): 283 - get paper here
  • Cobb, V. A. 2012. Geographic distribution: Ophisaurus attenuatus longicaudus (eastern slender glass lizard). Herpetological Review 43: 619 - get paper here
  • Coleman, Andrew W. and Greg Sievert 2015. Geographic Distribution: Ophisaurus attenuatus attenuatus (western slender glass lizard). Herpetological Review 46 (4): 570 - get paper here
  • Collins, J.T. 1962. Ophisaurus attenuatus longicaudus McConkey in Kentucky Herpetologica 18 (3): 206. - get paper here
  • Collins, J.T. and T. W. Taggart 2009. Standard Common and Current Scientific Names for North American Amphibians, Turtles, Reptiles, and Crocodilians, Sixth Edition. Center for North American Herpetology, 48 pp.
  • Collins, Joseph T. 1995. Ophisaurus attenuatus. Herpetological Review 26 (2): 109 - get paper here
  • Conant,R. & Collins,J.T. 1991. A Field Guide to Reptiles and Amphibians of Eastern/Central North America, 3rd ed. Houghton Mifflin (Boston/New York), xx + 450 p.
  • Connior, Matthew B. 2016. Geographic Distribution: Ophisaurus attenuatus (Slender Glass Lizard). Herpetological Review 47 (4): 629 - get paper here
  • Cope, E.D. 1880. On the zoological position of Texas. Bull. US Natl. Mus., No. 17: 1-51 - get paper here
  • Crother, B. I. (ed.) 2012. Standard Common and Current Scientific Names for North American Amphibians, Turtles, Reptiles, and Crocodilians, Seventh Edition. Herpetological Circular 39: 1-92
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  • Fitch, Henry S. 1989. A field Study of the slender glass lizard, Ophisaurus attenuatus, in northeastern Kansas. Occasional Papers of the Museum of Natural History, The University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas (125): 1-50 - get paper here
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  • Franklin, Carl J. 2005. Geographic Distribution: Ophisaurus attenuatus (Slender Glass Lizard). Herpetological Review 36 (2):202. - get paper here
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  • Geluso, K. 2022. First reproductive evidence for the Slender Glass Lizard (Ophisaurus attenuatus) in Nebraska. Transactions of the Nebraska Academy of Sciences 42, 10–14 - get paper here
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  • Guyer, Craig; Mark A. Bailey, and Robert H. Mount 2018. Lizards and snakes of Alabama. University of Alabama Press, 397 pp. - get paper here
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  • Jensen, John B.; Carlos D. Camp, Whit Gibbons, & Matt J. Elliott 2008. Amphibians and reptiles of Georgia. University of Georgia Press, 575 pp.
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  • Lemos-Espinal, Julio A. (ed.) 2015. Amphibians and Reptiles of the US - Mexico Border States / Anfibios y Reptiles de los Estados de la Frontera México - Estados Unidos. Texas A&M University Press, College Station, Texas. x + 614 pp.; ISBN 978-1-62349-306-6. - get paper here
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