During the height of spring, when nature is in full bloom, it often offers delightful surprises.
The garden had been left a bit abandoned, the climatic instability had not allowed the usual care, invasive herbs had intruded into the passages, into the flowerbeds, among the flowering plants. The beautiful day encouraged me to dedicate a few hours to tidying up the flowers, uprooting couch grass, removing dry branches and flowers, planting new plants. Intent on my work, after uprooting a long stolon of couch grass, which had moved a stone, a flash and immediately another attracted my attention. Something small and quick caught my eye, darting through the grass. Finally I saw it: a beautiful Sardinian Gongilo, the legendary Tiligugu or Iscurzone as it is called in Sardinia or Tiraciatu as it is called in Sicily! After years of hoping to see one, there it was. And just as quickly, it vanished.
“In my village, this reptile is called scurzone, which means shortened (curzo means short), and the name certainly refers to the fact that it looks like a shortened snake”. This is how Antonio Gramsci described the gongilo in a letter addressed to his sister-in-law Tania, an expert in natural history. He also recalls how in the peasant culture of the Sardinian countryside of Montiferru at the time, the name scurzone was associated with the mythical basilisk and that the gongilo was unknown even to the professor of natural history: “He laughed and told me that it was an imaginary animal, like the asp or the basilisk, and that he did not know any animal like the one I described (………). that they were all peasant superstitions and that snakes with legs do not exist”.
While common, it remains an elusive and largely unfamiliar creature to many.
The Sardinian Gongilo (Chalcides ocellatus tiligugu) is found across Sardinia, Sicily, Pantelleria, Malta, Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia. It is a subspecies of Chalcides ocellatus (Forsskål 1775), which is also native to Northern Africa, Greece, and Southwestern Asia. Both are highly similar.
It is a small saurian reptile belonging to the Scincidae family that can reach 30 cm in length as an adult. Its head is small and the elongated cylindrical body is completely covered with smooth scales, which give it a very shiny appearance. This shiny appearance once led Sardinian folklore to mistakenly believe the animal was coated in poisonous mucus, which is entirely false. Its back and sides display colors ranging from tawny to brown to olive green, adorned with a distinctive pattern of white ocelli bordered by black rectangles. The belly is a uniform yellowish-white, and the tail accounts for about half of its total length. It moves swiftly, with a uniquely undulating motion.
The paw with five toes equipped with strong nails is visible.
The four small, distant legs are not ideal for walking but are solely used to support the body. Each leg has five toes tipped with large nails, perfectly adapted for digging. The gongylo is highly skilled at burying itself in soft soil or sand. By moving its legs rapidly, almost as if swimming, it effortlessly slips into the sand. Once underground, it moves swiftly through the earth, undulating like a snake. This clever tactic helps it evade predators, making it remarkably elusive, even though it is a diurnal creature.
It thrives in warm, sunny, and arid environments such as beaches, scrublands, sandy soils, and gardens. Often concealed among rocks, leaves, or beneath soft sand, it favors humid spots, particularly under stones, where it remains dormant during the cold season from November to March.
The characteristic coloration of the body can be noted.
This ovoviviparous species gives birth to 3 to 10 young at a time, each measuring about 4 cm in length and already independent, typically between August and September.
Like any living organism, it plays a vital role within its ecosystem as a skilled predator of worms, insects, arthropods, and other invertebrates, which it hunts both above and below ground. Like all reptiles, it has a fondness for sweet, juicy fruits, which serve as an important water source in particularly arid regions. By consuming these fruits and later expelling their seeds through feces, it aids in the spread of certain plant species, such as the prickly pear, through a seed dispersal process known as saurochory.
From predator to prey: the Gongilo is also hunted by birds of prey, foxes, grass snakes, and both domestic and wild cats.
Although it is not currently at risk of extinction, the species is protected under the Bern Convention (law 503/1981, Annex III). However, its conservation status is increasingly endangered due to human activities, habitat fragmentation, the use of agricultural chemicals, and, regrettably, predation and killing by free-roaming domestic cats.
In Sicily, the Gongilo is known as Tiraciatu or Tiraciutu and is traditionally regarded as an aggressive and dangerous creature. According to local folklore, the Tiraciutu, drawn to the smell of milk, could enter infants’ mouths, causing suffocation, making it feared by mothers. It was also believed to sneak into stables to drink milk from the udders of sheep and cattle.
In truth, despite these myths, it is a small, harmless, and gentle reptile that thrives in the warm Mediterranean summers, preferring to stay far from human presence.
Maria Beatrice Lupi is a naturalist specializing in training, sustainable development planning, participatory methodologies, and European project management. She is actively involved in sustainability education and awareness initiatives.
Translated by Maria Antonietta Sessa
