Oct. 21 (Bloomberg) -- A ``legless lizard'' discovered by environmentalists this year in Brazil's Cerrado grasslands has been given a scientific name, Bachia oxyrhina, Latin for sharp nose, officially marking its debut as a new species.

Superficially resembling a snake with an extremely long body and tail that when coiled fits in the palm of an adult's hand, the species was discovered slithering in the sandy terrain of the savanna region in central Brazil, Conservation International said.

The scientific journal Zootaxa disclosed for the first time the new species name for the lizard, which was found in January by a group led by Cristiano Nogueira, a biodiversity analyst for Conservation International in Brazil. It has a pointy nose and rudimentary limbs that have no locomotive function.

The newly identified lizard that lives in the largest savanna area of South America, a region that makes up a fifth of Brazil, survives on small bugs, termites and ants in the soil, said Lisa Bowen, a spokeswoman for the Arlington, Virginia-based group.

The native grasslands once covered an area half the size of Europe but are being cleared at a faster rate than the Amazon rain forest for cropland to meet the rising demand for soybeans, sugar cane and cattle, said Ricardo Machado, author of a study by the conservation group on the Cerrado.

Part of a separate evolutionary line from snakes, the new sand-colored species, like other limbless lizards, has external ear openings and lacks the cranial modifications that enable snakes to ingest very large prey, Bowen said today in an e-mail.

To contact the reporter on this story: Randall Hackley in Zurich at rhackley@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: October 21, 2008 16:06 EDT