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All Articles Tagged As: lizards
 | Scientists have long puzzled over how iguanas, a group of lizards mostly found in the Americas, came to inhabit the isolated Pacific islands of Fiji and Tonga. For years, the leading explanation has been that progenitors of the island species must have rafted there, riding across the Pacific on a mat of vegetation or floating debris. But new research in the January issue of the American Naturalist suggests a more grounded explanation. ...> Full Article |
 | A scientist from the University of Salamanca and another from Yale University have shown that the presence of predators affects the behavior of Acanthodactylus beershebensis, a lizard species from the Negev Desert in the Near East. According to the study, these reptiles move less and catch less mobile and different prey if they are under pressure from predators. ...> Full Article |
 | A new species of chameleon has been discovered in a threatened forest in Tanzania. ...> Full Article |
 | Scientists discover gecko tail has a mind of its own ...> Full Article |
 | Scientists from Clemson University and the University of Calgary have found that the self-severed tail of some geckos shows a complex pattern of repeating movements to distract the attacker. ...> Full Article |
Reptiles are not known to be the most social of creatures. But when it comes to laying eggs, female reptiles can be remarkably communal, often laying their eggs in the nests of other females. New research in the September issue of the Quarterly Review of Biology suggests that this curiously out-of-character behavior is far more common in reptiles than was previously thought.
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Temperature explains much of why cold-blooded organisms such as fish, amphibians, crustaceans, and lizards live longer at higher latitudes than at lower latitudes, according to research published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences online.
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 | California's horned lizard is 3 species, based on genetics, morphology and ecology ...> Full Article |
 | A study published in the July 17 issue of the journal Science details how sandfish -- small lizards with smooth scales -- move rapidly underground through desert sand. In this first thorough examination of subsurface sandfish locomotion, researchers found that the animals place their limbs against their sides and create a wave motion like snakes to propel themselves through granular media. ...> Full Article |
Neon blue-tailed tree lizards are perfectly happy scurrying from branch to branch in their arboreal homes, but it wasn't clear whether they simply leaping between branches or glide. Bieke Vanhooydonck and colleagues compared the tree lizards' jumps with common wall lizards' and gliding geckos' leaps, and found that the tree lizards glide because they are incredibly light. Their bones are packed with tiny air bubbles that make them feather light.
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Whether baby lizards will turn out to be male or female is a more complicated question than scientists would have ever guessed, according to a new report published online on June 4 in Current Biology, a Cell Press publication. The study shows that for at least one lizard species, egg size matters.
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 | Keeping warm isn't the only reason lizards and other cold-blooded critters bask in the sun. According to a study published in the May/June issue of Physiological and Biochemical Zoology, chameleons alter their sunbathing behavior based on their need for vitamin D. ...> Full Article |
University of Michigan ecologists and their colleagues have answered a question that has puzzled biologists for more than a century: What is the main factor that determines a lizard's ability to shed its tail when predators attack?
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 | Lizards living in tropical forests in Central and South America and the Caribbean could be in serious peril from rising temperatures associated with climate change. In fact, those forest lizards appear to tolerate a much narrower range of survivable temperatures than do their relatives at higher latitudes and are actually less tolerant of high temperatures, according to a University of Washington biologist. ...> Full Article |
Lizards have the ultimate quick release escape system. When in a predator's grips, they drop their tails to escape. But what price do tree dwelling lizards pay for freedom? A team led by Gary Gillis from Mount Holyoke College, US, tested the effect the loss had on the lizards' mobility and found that the lizards are extremely compromised. They can no longer jump, somersaulting backwards, making it difficult to land safely when jumping between branches.
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 | Native fence lizards in the southeastern United States are adapting to potentially fatal invasive fire-ant attacks by developing behaviors that enable them to escape from the ants, as well as by developing longer hind legs, which can increase the effectiveness of this behavior. This finding provides biologists with an example of evolution in action, and provides wildlife managers with knowledge that they can use to develop plans for managing invasive species. ...> Full Article |
 | Small skink lizards, Lerista, demonstrate extensive changes in body shape over geologically brief periods. ...> Full Article |
 | Birds and others sing; anoles are first species known to mark time through visual displays ...> Full Article |
 | A new study has predicted that temperature increases due to climate change will cause the tuatara, an endangered reptile, to produce only male offspring by 2085, guaranteeing its extinction. ...> Full Article |
Why bother running on hind legs when the four you've been given work perfectly well?
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 | Legless lizard and tiny woodpecker among new species ...> Full Article |
Female Australian painted dragon lizards are polyandrous, that is, they mate with as many males as they can safely get access to.
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 | Foraging sheds light on evolution of biomechanics ...> Full Article |
 | Researchers has shown that introducing small, green-backed lizards, Podarcis sicula, to a new environment caused them to undergo rapid and large-scale evolutionary changes. ...> Full Article |
 | The image of the chameleon as a shy creature, using camouflage to conceal themselves has been challenged by new research showing that colour change evolved to attract the attention of other chameleons. ...> Full Article |
 | What drove the evolution of color change in chameleons? Chameleons can use color change to camouflage and to signal to other chameleons, but a new paper shows that the need to rapidly signal to other chameleons, and not the need to camouflage from predators, has driven the evolution of this characteristic trait. ...> Full Article |
 | In the race of evolution, scientists until now have only looked at winners and losers. Now, they've come up with a way to look at the contenders who never made it out of the gate. ...> Full Article |
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