Remarkably modern fossil skink found, according to reports in ScienceDaily 1 May 2019, and Journal of Vertebrate Palaeontology published online doi: 10.1080/02724634.2019.1577873. Palaeontologist from Flinders University, Australia, who were excavating the Riversleigh fossil site in northern Australia have found a fossil skink “remarkably similar to modern social skinks”. Skinks are type of lizard common in […]
Blizzard Lizard Evolution, claim scientists in reports in Science (AAAS) News and ScienceDaily 3 August 2017, and Science vol. 357, pp. 495-498, doi: 0.1126/science.aam5512, 4 August 2017. In the winter of 2013-2014 a polar vortex blasted mainland USA with unusually cold weather. Just before this a group of scientists had studied Anole lizards in various […]
Diets shaped chameleon heads, according to Science (AAAS) News 31 March 2017 and Functional Ecology vol. 31, pp 671–684, March 2017, doi: 10.1111/1365-2435.12750. A group of scientists studying a genus of South African dwarf chameleons named Bradypodion were intrigued by the variety of head shapes within the same genus – some tall, some wide and […]
How to breathe under sand described in Journal of Experimental Biology (JEB) 16 November 2016, doi: 10.1242/jeb.151969. The sandfish lizard (Scincus scincus) lives in the North African sandy desert and spends most of its life buried in sand. Scientists who have studied this creature have wondered why it doesn’t end up with its lungs clogged […]
Devils drink from wet sand, according to reports in New Scientist 2 November, ABC News 3 November 2016, and Journal of Experimental Biology 2016 219: 3309 doi: 10.1242/jeb.151407. The thorny devil (Moloch horridus) is a small lizard that lives in Central Australia and is so named because its skin is covered with spike shaped scales. […]