Legless lizard

Discovered hiding under the rim of a tyre full of compost when turning over the contents prior to transplanting some Bronze Fennel. .

This is an upside down view of the freshly disturbed animal. Not fast moving, about 10cm long...

Presumably it's an eastern form of the Cape Legless Skink, Acontias meleagris, even though it looks more like photographs of the Striped Blind Legless Skink Typhlosaurus lineatus. The distributions are completely different. A bit on the small side, though? For scale the "twigs" are the central stems of Jacaranda leaves.

Right side up.

These are fairly common in compost heaps - I've found plenty over the years in different areas of Grahamstown, all about this size, but never bothered to photograph them (the modern benefit of a camera equipped smart phone got this one).  It must have been transferred from the main compost heap when filling up the new row of tyres last week. Supposedly eats slugs, so it'll be in luck for a while.

The most recent specimen prior to this was about ten days ago when I found half of one in a previously filled tyre, a victim of the spade used in shovelling the compost around.

Update 2015/11/14:

Another one. Moved it to the compost heap next to the one that's being cleared out.

Update 2015/12/23:

Found two more during compost moving exercise in the morning. The first was quite large, the diameter of a pencil and somewhat longer, the second was the "normal" size. The big guy was quite fast moving.

Both were in the old, dry compost.