Hart's glass lizards, also named “Mountain dirt dragons,” are characterized by their lack of limbs, similar to a snake. Unlike snakes, however, they have clear outer ear openings, and long stretches of horizontal skin folds along their lateral sides. The glass lizards are distributed in the Zhejiang , Fujian and Sichuan Provinces of Mainland China . Their distribution in Taiwan is rarely reported, located mainly in the Northern alpine regions like Tamsui, Yangmingshan Mountain range, Mount Chatianshan, Mount Lala, Taipinshan in Yi-Lan, Hapen in Wulai and Chihshang in Taitung. Recently, we have found 3 lizards in Central Wushe , SunLinkSea and Chiayi's Fencihu, with the Wushe specimen being a juvenile individual.

Hart's glass lizards like to live in moist forest soil. During downpours or sequential rain storms, they will come out their flooded holes and breathe. The specimen from Wushe was discovered after a rainfall. During sunny days, they can sometimes be seen sunbathing among the fallen leaf piles on forest paths. These lizards primarily feed on insects and are oviparous, laying 13 to 14 eggs at a time. They seem to be protective of their eggs, the females will encircle around the eggs. If an egg is removed, the female will push it back with its head (Lin and Cheng, Guide to Taiwan's Lizards, 1990).

There are few reports on the Hart's glass lizard in Taiwan, therefore its lifestyle is seldom understood; there is another endemic glass lizard in Taiwan, called the Ophisaurus formosensis ( Formosan Glass lizard), which is even more rare than the Hart's glass lizard. Therefore, its living history is also an enigma to the scientific community. To differentiate between these two lizards, one would count the numbers of scales between its snout and nose/forehead. Hart's glass lizard has two scales, and the Formosan glass lizard has only one. However, the juvenile Hart's glass lizard differed greatly in morphology with the adult individuals, and was once mistaken as two different species. The following table listed the differences between their body color, head spots and whether or not lateral skin folds are present.

It was once said that these lizards can be found during cultivation or excavation, but there have been few records of glass lizards being found on plains in the last twenty years. If the above was true, then the present distribution of glass lizards could probably be used as an index of pollution to the plain grounds.