Wildlife
Slow worms look superficially like snakes, but are actually legless lizards. One way to identify them is to see if they have eyelids. Lizards (and therefore slow worms) do while snakes are lidless.
How to identify UK reptiles.
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Lightning lizard
Slow worms are quite the opposite: not worms and definitely not slow.
Slow worms are quite the opposite: not worms and definitely not slow.
Slow worms
Slow worms develop young inside their bodies.
Living in the crevices between rocks, slow worms hunt by day for slugs, snails, small insects and spiders. The females give birth during summer, when up to a dozen partly developed young are born in a birth sac which soon breaks open. Developing the young inside her body keeps them at a stable temperature, protecting them from the extremes of Britain's weather.
Species range provided by WWF's Wildfinder.
The Slow worm can be found in a number of locations including: Asia, Europe, Mediterranean, Russia, United Kingdom, Wales. Find out more about these places and what else lives there.
The following habitats are found across the Slow worm distribution range. Find out more about these environments, what it takes to live there and what else inhabits them.
Discover what these behaviours are and how different plants and animals use them.
Additional data source: Animal Diversity Web
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Garden wildlife
From badgers to butterflies and frogs to foxes, garden wildlife is both varied and surprising.
Farmland
Brownfield land
Desert
Mediterranean forest
Parkland
Broadleaf forest
Coniferous forest
Temperate grassland
Urban
Shedding body parts
Predation defence
Carnivorous
Burrower
Tactile sense
Moulting
Ovoviviparous
Polymorphism
Active at birth
Chemical communication
Sexual dimorphism