General appearance Dibamids are burrower lizards characterized by their elongated bodies with blunt head and tail, and an apparent lack of limbs.
Limbs Dibamids are lizards with highly reduced limbs but they are not completely limbless. Males and females have rudimentary poorly developed hind limbs containing a
femur,
tibia and
fibula in males, and distal cartilage cap. These elements are more developed on
Dibamus than in
Anelytropsis. Female
Dibamus lack the
tibia and the
fibula. with reduced kinesis and a more rigid skull for burrowing. The combination of
fossorial habits and small size, contributes to the development of a skull configuration that is frequently found in other groups of burrowers and miniaturized species. Among those characteristics are the closure of the
supratemporal fenestra and the
post-temporal fenestra, the relative large
braincase, tubular or scroll-like palatines and modified jaw suspension mechanism with the
quadrate articulating with the lateral wall of the
braincase. Other characteristics of the skull of blind skinks include the absence of a
parietal foramen, a well developed secondary palate formed by three different bones, the
maxillae,
vomers and palatines which are expanded ventromedially to form a scroll, and the lack of
palatal teeth.
Nasal and
frontal bones are paired and contact each other in a W-shape suture with no overlap between the two bones, and several bones are lost (
lacrimal,
postorbital and
jugal) or highly reduced (
supratemporal and
squamosal). The main cranial differences, besides sizes, between
Anelytropsis and
Dibamus is the presence of epipterygoid and
postfrontal in the Central American genus. The
mandible of Dibamidae bears less than 10 teeth and is composed of only three bones, the dentary, the coronoid and the compound bone. A remnant of the
splenial bone is only present in one species of
Dibamus,
Dibamus novaeguineae. == Classification ==