Anguidae refers to a large and diverse family of lizards native to the Northern Hemisphere.

Common characteristics of this group include a reduced supratemporal arch, striations on the medial faces of tooth crowns, osteoderms, and a lateral fold in the skin of most taxa.

[1] The group is divided into two living subfamilies, the legless Anguinae, which contains slow worms and glass lizards, among others, found across the Northern Hemisphere, and Gerrhonotinae, which contains the alligator lizards, native to North and Central America.

Odaxosaurus and other Late Cretaceous anguids already exhibit many features found in living anguids, including chisel-like teeth and armor plates in the skin, suggesting a long evolutionary history for the group.

Anguids were particularly diverse during the Paleocene and Eocene in North America; some species, such as those belonging to Glyptosaurinae,[1] grew to large size and evolved a highly specialized crushing dentition.