Home/Posts Tagged ‘lizard’
Posts Tagged ‘lizard’
Animals, Weird Stuff, Wildlife & Flora, Feb 8th, 2012,
A rare Chioninia lizard from Cape Verde climbed into a tourist’s luggage before she boarded her flight from the African islands to the UK. The lizard survived a 3,000-mile (5,000 km) flight in a cold luggage hold, followed by a machine wash cycle at the tourist’s home in Somerset, UK. Sue Banwell-Moore found the lizard after removing her washing from the machine. She assumed it was dead until it surprisingly recovered. From the Guardian: I was hanging out the washing on the clothes dryer and I looked down and there was this lizard there. I thought he was dead…
Tags: Cape Verde, Chioninia, flight, lizard, UK, washing machine
Climate Change, Nature, Weird Stuff, Wildlife & Flora, Jun 2nd, 2010,
This week’s Creature Feature takes us to the cloud forests of the Knuckles Mountains in Sri Lanka. The Leaf-Nosed Lizard, or Tennent’s Leaf-Nosed Lizard, is an endangered species that can only be found in Sri Lanka. Named for the leaf-like appendage on the tip of its nose, this lizard can grow over 8 inches in length (including the tail). Males tend to have longer appendages on their noses than the females and they are also typically greener in color. These lizards also have the ability to change color—in this case, a reddish brown—in order to blend in with their surroundings….
Tags: cloud forest, Creature Feature, endangered species, Knuckles mountains, Leaf-Nosed Lizard, lizard, reptile, Sri Lanka, Tennent’s Leaf-Nosed Lizard
Uncategorized, May 17th, 2010,
A recent study claims that 20% of lizard species could be extinct by the year 2080, due to the effects of climate change. The research shows a correlation between rising temperatures and lizard extinctions since 1975. As more species become extinct, entire eco-systems will be thrown out of balance. From an article in the Telegraph: The drop in the lizard population could cause an explosion in the numbers of insect they normally feed on as well as devastating creatures higher up the food chain which rely on them for food. The international study is clear that climate change is at…
Tags: Climate change, extinct, lizard, lizards, species, study, temperature
Weird Stuff, Wildlife & Flora, Apr 28th, 2010,
Last week, a rather interesting critter was discovered in Perth, Australia. The creature appeared to be nothing more than a common Shingleback, or skink lizard. Well, with one exception: the lizard has 2 heads. The lizard is currently being cared for at a reptile park in Henley Brook. Unfortunately, two-headed lizards don’t have particularly long life spans and it probably doesn’t help that the larger head has been occasionally attacking the smaller one. This particular two-headed lizard eats from both heads, though, and it also has a healthy sibling with no signs of mutation. Polycephaly (the condition of having multiple…
Tags: australia, lizard, multiple heads, Perth, polycephaly, reptile, shingleback, two-headed
Nature, Wildlife & Flora, Apr 7th, 2010,
Previously unknown to the scientific community, a ‘new’ species of monitor lizard has been documented in the Royal Society Biology Letters. Dubbed the Varanus bitatawa, the giant lizard lives in the Sierra Madre forests of Luzon Island in the Northern Philippines, where it is well known to local tribes who hunt it for its meat. It is not often these days for biologists to find new species of large animals, or mega-fauna. But could the deforestation of Luzon, a once heavily forested island, have opened up the shy tree-dwelling monitor to exposure? According to a BBC News report, many biologists…
Tags: forest, forests, lizard, Luzon, monitor, new, northern, Philippines, Sierra Madre, species, Varanus bitatawa
