Episode 221 - Legless Lizards

The Common Descent Podcast

Common Descent

Science, Education, Earth Sciences, Natural Sciences, Science:natural Sciences

4.8 • 764 Ratings

🗓️ 6 July 2025

⏱️ 150 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Lizards are extremely good at becoming snake-shaped. A long body with small or absent limbs is a shape that has evolved dozens of times across nearly every major lineage of lizards. This episode, we explore the diversity of leglessness in lizards, we discuss which groups have done it and which groups have done it best, and we examine what’s known about the repeated evolution of this unexpected body shape. In the news: giant dusky salamander, very early footprints, a Denisovan skull, a mammoth tusk boomerang, and night lizards. Time markers:Intro & Announcements: 00:00:00News: 00:06:25Main discussion, Part 1: 00:41:50Main discussion, Part 2: 01:33:55Patron question: 02:16:35 Check out our website for this episode’s blog post and more: http://commondescentpodcast.com/ Join us on Patreon to support the podcast and enjoy bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/commondescentpodcast Happy Disability Pride Month!AmeriDisability https://www.ameridisability.com/National Disability Rights Network https://www.ndrn.org/ Got a topic you want to hear about? Submit your episode request here: https://commondescentpodcast.com/request-a-topic/ Lots more ways to connect with us: https://linktr.ee/common_descent The Intro and Outro music is “On the Origin of Species” by Protodome. More music like this at http://ocremix.org Musical Interludes are "Professor Umlaut" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	You're listening to the Common Descent podcast.
0:19.0	Hello, Will. Hello, David.
0:21.8	Hello, listeners, and welcome to episode 221 of the Common Descent podcast.
0:27.2	It is Snake Month.
0:28.7	Snake Month.
0:29.6	Here at Common Descent, July is Snake Month, and we are celebrating this episode by talking
0:33.7	about snakes and other snake-like things.
0:36.1	This episode's topic is legless lizards,
0:39.2	which is an enormous topic. We are going to talk about the overall trend of lizards
0:45.9	becoming snake-like in their body shape and in some ways in their behavior.
0:51.4	Yeah. We will go over the vast living diversity of legless lizards.
0:56.1	We'll talk about how they vary, how they live their lives,
0:58.9	and we'll talk about what is known about the evolution and deep history of this trend of
1:04.4	lizards becoming snake-like.
1:06.4	We will also talk a bunch about snakes.
1:08.4	It's going to be good.
1:09.5	This is a very fitting snake month topic that I'm excited about.
1:14.5	Yeah, no, definitely, because this is a group that doesn't get many other chances to be talked about.
1:20.7	So, excited to dive into them.
1:23.9	Also excited about this episode are probably the people who requested this topic. Every episode
1:29.3	of the podcast is a requested topic by our listeners. This topic was requested by Lucy, Ben, Tanner,
1:38.3	Barbara, Ollie, and Valeria. Good requests. Excellent for Snake Month.
	...

Transcript will be available on the free plan in 18 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.

Previous episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Common Descent, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Common Descent and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.