A Peloponnese endemic... Or maybe not? – Re-discovery of the Greek Limbless Skink in the Greek mainland! | Central Greece

The Greek mainland hosts a great diversity of herpetofauna, with large sections of it remaining greatly under-surveyed. As a result, our knowledge on the distribution of certain species is currently fragmentary.  One such place is the administrative region of Central Greece (Στερεά Ελλάδα), where past herpetological surveys are insufficient and where distributional gaps are widespread. 

Occasional enigmatic records of Ophiomorus punctatissimus - a small, limbless skink species - in mainland Greece have been puzzling herpetologists during the past 3 decades. First in Attica and Boeotia (1883), then Larissa (1930), Phthiotis (1981) and lastly, in Aetolia and Acarnania (1996), single individuals of this species were appearing in occasional literature reports during the 19th and 20th centuries. Since 1996, however, no findings north of the Isthmus of Corinth had been published, with recent literature considering this cryptic lizard to be an endemic species of the Peloponnese. On a short note published in January 2025 in Herpetology Notes, we report on the first record of the species in Central Greece during the 21st century, and the first ever record in the prefecture of Evia. Certain biogeographical implications arise from this record, and the need for further, systematic field surveys in the region is highlighted.

 Stefanopoulos, P. & Kalogiannis, S. 2025. A new record of the Greek Limbless Skink, Ophiomorus punctatissimus (Bibron & Bory de St. Vincent, 1833), in central Greece. Herpetology Notes, 18: 31-34. [full-text]

Range of Ophiomorus punctatissimus, older reports, and finding locality