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
Mercedes Burns, University of Maryland, Baltimore County
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.
A male Agama planiceps shows off his colouring on a rock in Namibia.
Ondrej Prosicky/Shutterstock
By eliminating the less fit individuals over time, predation can drive the population to increasing fitness in terms of survival and reproductive success.
The three-toed skink can give birth to live young and lay eggs in the same pregnancy. What can this little critter teach us about the evolution of live birth?
A grassland earless dragon at Jerrabomberra, NSW, November 1991. The search is now on for this species’ Victorian cousin.
CSIRO/Wikimedia Commons
The Victorian grassland earless dragon may well be the first lizard species driven to extinction on Australia's mainland. But conservationists aren't ready to declare it dead just yet.
Welcome to the world, little lizard. A three-toed skink (Saiphos equalis) hatching from an egg.
Nadav Pezaro
The evolution of live birth from egg-laying is no mean feat. Now new research reports on the first known example where both eggs and a live birth come from the same lizard pregnancy.
In the wake of two hurricanes in the Turks and Caicos Islands, researchers document for the first time that catastrophic storms can be agents of natural selection, influencing how species evolve.
Impression of Megachirella wachtleri walking through the vegetation about 240 million years ago in what is now the Dolomites region of Italy.
Davide Bonadonna
A new study of an ancient fossil has found it to be the earliest lizard known, so far. It shows they survived one the greatest mass extinctions on Earth.
Reptiles add socioeconomic value but when it comes to accessing detailed reference information about them, students and naturalists can face serious challenges.
Echis, also known as the saw-scaled viper, dominates snakebite statistics and kills more people annually than any other.
Shutterstock
Biologists have a centuries-old tradition of publishing on rare and endangered species. But poachers are using open-access information to target valuable and fragile new species.