Employees of the Joint Russian-Vietnamese Tropical Research and Technology Center (Tropical Center), a branch of the A. N. Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Evolution of the Russian Academy of Sciences, discovered a new species of lizards. It was named Dibamus tropcentr, or "blind skink of Ninh Thuan."
Ninh Thuan blind skinks have a worm-like body that can reach 11.5 centimeters in length.
Their eyes are vestigial and completely covered in scales. Dibamus tropcentr are limbless, and only males possess vestigial hindlimbs that form patchwork structures near their tails.
This species has a pinkish-brown body, lighter near the head and darker near the tail. The skink is very similar to an earthworm, but has a smooth, scaly texture.
The study was published in the journal Zootaxa.
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