http://www.maremmaguide.com/snakes-in-italy.html Slow Worm
Orbettino - Anguis fragilis
Although the Orbettino is a reptile that looks like a snake, it can be distinguished from one by the fact that it has eyelids that blink and visible ears. It also sheds its skin in patches like other lizards, rather than as a whole skin like snakes.
It grows to about about 50 cm long, is brown or gray, and spread throughout Italy, living in an environment rich in vegetation and in damp humid places. It doesn't need much heat and so stays for most of the day in holes, under rocks or in a decaying tree trunk, coming out during early morning or dusk to feed.
The Slow Worm feeds upon a great quantity of slugs, but also small mammals, bird eggs, insects and earthworms. To get rid of the mucus after eating slugs it rubs its nose on the ground.
It can break its tail vertebrae in half loosing up to sixty per cent of its body (autotomize) in order to escape the jaws of a predator. And is ovoviviparous in that the female gives birth to already formed live young.
It is an exceptionanly long lived animal and can live up to 50 years of age.