Show reptile exhibit displays lizards that have no legs and elongated bodie badiea i A k feature of tile the reptile exhibit in al albert bert W harris tall hall at tile the IT field museum of natural history chicago is the display of several species of limbless lizards these lizards hold a special interest tor for scientists because of the evidence they offer in support of the theory of evolution karl 1 P schmidt assistant curator of the museum in charge of reptiles points out 1 lizards lizards have a familiar typical form eliat of a scaly quadruped with a long 1019 tall tail lie he writes it is remarkable therefore to find that many lizards whose four footed relatives are easily recognizable have wholly lost their limbs and with elongation ot of bodies and tall tail have become snakelike in form E every very stage in the loss of limba and elongation of body is ex es habited in the fa family mily of lizards known as skinks there are species of slinks with live four three and two toes and with limbs reduced to mere stumps or entirely absent this mode of evolution Is frequent among lizards with burrowing habits and is in such species frequently accompanied compa compan nied led by loss of eyes and ear openings such lizards except to tile the technically trained student may be indistinguishable list 11 gu isha life fro from a i similarly blind burrowing snakes others however retain the active senses of their ancestors and are readily distinguishable from snakes by their movable eyelids eyelia and ear openings 0 structures which tire are absent in snakes the common sc called glass snake of north america which is found in it the vicinity of chicago is a limbless lizard of this clas |