Mole-Limbed Wormlizards: Bipedidae

WHAT DO THEY EAT?

In many cases, scientists learn about the diets of animals by watching them eat. When the animal eats at night or underground, however, their food habits can remain a mystery. This is true of the mole-limbed wormlizards. Instead of trying to catch a peek of one of these hard-to-find animals dining in the wild, scientists sometimes collect their droppings. Droppings, also called feces (FEE-sees), contain clues to the animal's diet, such as bits of food that the animal could not digest. If the wormlizard ate an insect, for example, the droppings might contain a little piece of the insect's leg. In addition, scientists sometimes find a dead animal in the wild and cut open its stomach to see what is inside. Through these two methods, they can learn what even the shyest of animals eat.