Armless creature with clawed toes found in Australian outback. It’s a new species
In a remote region of northern Australia, an armless creature writhed deeper into the dirt and pushed itself along with its clawed toes. But something turned its world upside down, wrenching it toward the sunlit surface.
Scientists paused their raking and looked at the striped animal they’d just uncovered. It turned out to be a new species.
Researchers visited the “expansive and poorly surveyed” Gulf Plains Bioregion in northern Queensland in 2018 and 2023 to look for reptiles, according to a study published March 27 in the peer-reviewed journal Zootaxa.
During their surveys, researchers used “three-pronged rakes to search through loose soil and litter,” the study said. The method worked, and the team found several unfamiliar-looking armless lizards.
Researchers took a closer look at the lizards, tested their DNA and quickly realized they’d discovered a new species: Lerista karichigara, or the Tagalaka slider.
Tagalaka sliders can reach about 5 inches in length, the study said. They have legs with two clawed toes but no arms. Their heads have an “angular” snout and “minute” ears.
Zootaxa shared a photo of the new species in a post on X, previously known as Twitter. Overall, the new species looks like a snake with a pair of seemingly out-of-proportion legs midway down its body.
Study co-author Scott Macor shared photos of the new species in a March 27 post on Instagram. Researchers described the lizards as being “fawn” or “pale golden-brown” with “fine, dark” lines running down their bodies.
Tagalaka sliders are “fossorial,” or burrowing, lizards found in crumbly soil “near the base of trees” in open woodlands, the study said. Male lizards found in July were “in the early stages of reproductive activity.”
Researchers said they named the new species “karichigara” after the Tagalaka phrase “‘Kari Chigara Changgala,’ meaning ‘no-leg lizard,’” because of its lack of arms. The new species’ common name refers to the Tagalaka people, the indigenous group who own some of the area where the new species lives.
So far, the new species has been found at five sites in the Gulf Plains Bioregion in northeastern Australia but is likely more widespread, the study said.
“It seems likely that further survey efforts throughout the (Gulf Plains Bioregion) will continue to yield new and notable distributional records — important for conservation assessments and biodiversity studies — and possibly reveal new species,” researchers said.
The new species was identified by its “deeply divergent” DNA, limbs, eyelids, scale pattern and other subtle physical features, the study said.
The research team included Macor, Stephen Zozaya, Eric Vanderduys, Macor, Wesley Read and Andrew Amey.
This story was originally published March 31, 2025 at 2:28 PM with the headline "Armless creature with clawed toes found in Australian outback. It’s a new species."
