- Lifespan
- 20+ years in the wild, up to 54 years in captivity
- Size & Weight
- 30–50 cm (occasionally up to 60 cm); 40–100 g
- Habitat
- Sheltered locations including gardens, compost heaps, leaf litter, grassland margins, and woodland edges with good ground cover and moisture.
- UK Distribution
- Found throughout mainland Great Britain and Wales, and in localised populations in southern Ireland; year-round resident.
- Diet
- Carnivorous, feeding primarily on invertebrates including slugs, snails, worms, spiders, insects, and their larvae.
- Prey
- Slugs, snails, earthworms, millipedes, centipedes, spiders, and small insects
- Predators
- Grass snakes, adders, badgers, hedgehogs, birds of prey (especially kestrels), and domestic cats and dogs
- Mating Season
- April to June
- Breeding
- Ovoviviparous (eggs retained and hatched internally); females give birth to 4–30 live young (typically 8–15) in July to September. No incubation period applies as young develop within the female.
- Behaviour
- Slow worms are docile and solitary, sheltering under logs, stones, and garden debris. They are often mistaken for snakes despite being legless lizards. When threatened, they readily autotomise (shed) their tail as an escape mechanism, which can detach and wriggle to distract predators.