Ophisaurus ventralis natural history

Last Friday I received a call from my little brother Phillip. He was at an open house in St. Petersburg Florida and noticed a rather strange looking "snake" in the bushes in the front yard. When I answered the call he asked if I had ever seen a snake that has a head like a lizard and a crease running down its sides. This was very exciting to me as I knew it could only be one thing in the southeast: a glass lizard. I told him to take a picture and send it to me and to go ahead and catch it, but to do so near the head because the tail would likely autotomize if he grabbed it too far back. You can see that this one already lost part of its tail before the encounter.
These are the pictures of what he found:

 I have determined that this is an eastern glass lizard (Ophisaurus ventralis). This unique legless lizard has osteoderms that help make the skin more ridged. It is due to this hard outer shell that glass lizards have the dorsolateral grooves that can be seen in the family Anguidae. One can tell that this is a lizard and not a snake because it has ear holes as well as eyelids (snakes lack both of these)As Ophisaurus is the only genus that we have in the southeastern united states (and this specimen does not have any legs) 4 options were possible O. ventralis, O. mimicus, O. Compressus, and O. attenuatus. O. mimicus is not located that far south in Florida (and would more likely be confused with the slender glass lizard O. attenuatus). O. attenuatus (The slender glass lizard) can be ruled out because there are no lines below the dorsolateral groove, it is also thinner than the eastern glass lizard. Finally the Island glass lizard, Ophisaurus compressus can be ruled out because it has a thin distinct line running above the dorsolateral groove In addition all three of these other glass lizards tend to have a dark line runding down the mid-dorsum. As the area right behind the cloaca was not swollen I would assume that this individual was female.
Glass lizards are typically good burrowers and can spend some of their time underground making them sometimes difficult to find. I included the picture of where Phillip found the specimen (and yes it is in the picture it is just very difficult to see). They will eat insects, smaller reptiles, and bird eggs and span a majority of the southeastern united states.
I felt compelled to write about this find because it is likely one of the most mistaken reptiles. Although Phillip could tell there was something weird about this animal, the natural tendency is for people to assume that because it is legless, it must be a snake. I am really glad that Phillip has such a keen eye and was able to spot the lizard even though he was not actively searching for it.