It’s not a snake. It’s not a worm. And as far as legless lizards go, the Mexican mole lizard is a strange one.

Hours after setting up a pitfall trap that is designed to catch any animal that walks over it, herpetologist Sara Ruane from Rutgers University-Newark was excited by what she saw: “It was shocking to see one in this trap, I couldn’t believe it was in there.”

She was surprised to see the Mexican mole lizard, also known as Bipes biporus, because their underground lifestyle means they don’t spend too much time on the surface.

This month, Ruane was out with University of California Berkeley graduate student Kaitlyn Kraybill-Voth, who took the video, setting traps for a general biodiversity