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Articles on Lizards

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Temperature sensitivity makes western fence lizards vulnerable to climate change. Greg Shine/BLM

Climate change is already forcing lizards, insects and other species to evolve – and most can’t keep up

From dark dragonflies becoming paler to plants flowering earlier, some species are slowly evolving with the climate. Evolutionary biologists explain why few will evolve fast enough.
With four tiny legs and an extraordinarily long body, a fossil of the snake-like lizard Tetrapodophis amplectus has created controversy. (Julius Csotonyi)

A fossil of a snake-like lizard has generated controversy beyond its identity

In 2015, a published article described the fossil of a four-legged snake. New research has revealed that it is in fact a lizard, and the fossil is the centre of a scientific ethics debate.
A specimen of Proscelotes aenea collected by Loveridge in 1918 in Lumbo, Mozambique, now kept at the Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University. Licensed under http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/

Search for elusive skinks is filling gaps in Mozambique’s biodiversity data

Species distribution data – or a lack thereof – can have a major bearing on how a country’s Key Biodiversity Areas and protected areas are designated.
Getting the job done. A female Asian water dragon (Physignathus cocincinus) produced a daughter (left) without the assistance of a male. Skip Brown/Smithsonian’s National Zoo

Virgin births from parthenogenesis: How females from some species can reproduce without males

Parthenogenesis, a form of reproduction in which an egg develops into an embryo without being fertilized by sperm, might be more common than you realized.

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