Common names: North American worm lizard, Florida worm lizard, thunderworm.

The Rhineuridae are a monotypic

Monotypic

In biology, a monotypic taxon is a taxonomic group with only one biological type. The term's usage differs slightly between botany and zoology. The term monotypic has a separate use in conservation biology, monotypic habitat, regarding species habitat conversion eliminating biodiversity and...

 family

Family (biology)

In biological classification, family is* a taxonomic rank. Other well-known ranks are life, domain, kingdom, phylum, class, order, genus, and species, with family fitting between order and genus. As for the other well-known ranks, there is the option of an immediately lower rank, indicated by the...

 of worm lizards

Amphisbaenidae

The Amphisbaenidae are a family of amphisbaenians, commonly known as worm lizards. They are found in North and South America, some Caribbean islands, and in sub-Saharan Africa...

 containing the monotypic genus

Genus

In biology, a genus is a low-level taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms, which is an example of definition by genus and differentia...

, Rhineura, which contains the species

Species

In biology, a species is one of the basic units of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring. While in many cases this definition is adequate, more precise or differing measures are...

 R. floridana. This species is found only in Florida

Florida

Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...

 no further north than the panhandle. No subspecies are currently recognized. The family has a fossil record stretching back 60 million years to the Paleocene

Paleocene

The Paleocene or Palaeocene, the "early recent", is a geologic epoch that lasted from about . It is the first epoch of the Palaeogene Period in the modern Cenozoic Era...

, and once had a number of species distributed across the western United States.

Description

This species varies in length from 18–30 cm (7–12 inches). They may or may not have limbs and have external eyes and ears. They are burrowers, preferring a soil sand or leaf mold substrate, and spending most of their time underground where they are safe from predators. They surface only when plowing or heavy rain forces them to evacuate their burrows. Because of the latter they are sometimes called thunderworms. When disturbed, they retreat into their burrows tail-first. The diet includes insects and earthworms. but they are opportunistic feeders and will eat almost any invertebrate

Invertebrate

An invertebrate is an animal without a backbone. The group includes 97% of all animal species – all animals except those in the chordate subphylum Vertebrata .Invertebrates form a paraphyletic group...

 small enough to catch. Reproduction is by laying eggs (oviparous).

Conservation status

This species is classified as Least Concern (LC) on the IUCN

World Conservation Union

The International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources is an international organization dedicated to finding "pragmatic solutions to our most pressing environment and development challenges." The organization publishes the IUCN Red List, compiling information from a network of...

 Red List of Threatened Species

IUCN Red List

The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species , founded in 1963, is the world's most comprehensive inventory of the global conservation status of biological species. The International Union for Conservation of Nature is the world's main authority on the conservation status of species...

(v3.1, 2001). Species are listed as such due to their wide distribution, presumed large population, or because it is unlikely to be declining fast enough to qualify for listing in a more threatened category. The population trend is stable. Year assessed: 2007.