Caribbean Lizards Evolve Independently
...ped the family tree to test two theorieson how the lizards evolved. One possibility is that each of these habitatspecialists evolved only one time. For example, the twig specialist may haveevolved on a single large island that then fragmented into the four islands thatexist today. Alternatively, a twig sp...Scientists Unearth Remains Of A Predatory Dinosaur In Madagascar
...s similar to joints found insome modern-day birds, lizards and snakes. "This skull will provide us with a lot of information about muscles,blood vessels and other tissues that is difficult to get from other, poorlypreserved fossils," Witmer says. "But we'll learn even more by comparingMajungatholus t...Study 'Gone With The Wind' Provides Stellar Ecological Example
...it thearea on October 19. The trio had introduced lizards to the islands in 1993 toconduct an experiment, "... difference in the fate of organisms. Spiders and lizards werecompletely wiped out and vegetation greatly damaged on the 11 southwest, orcatastrophically hit,...New Studies Shed Light On Facial Features Of Popular Dinosaurs
...yrannosaurs, which have been likened to modern-day lizards thought to havemuscular lips. Lizards have scales that Witmer says hang down along the edges oftheir jaws and hide the lizards' teeth when their mouths are closed. However,this isn't necessarily so with tyrannosaurs. These dinosaurs had skin thatprob...New Study Offers A Twist On Evolution Of Animal Postures
...ighwalk. Reilly has studied locomotion of lizards -- definite sprawlers -- andbirds, which clearly walk erect. When he compared the limb and joint movementsof the alligators to these animals, he found that the alligators didn't fitneatly into either the sprawling or erect categories as other researc......growth pattern mirrors that seen in modern armored lizards and crocodiles, thejuveniles of which lack the bony patches in the skin that are present in adults. The co-leaders of the expedition are: Luis M. Chiappe, research associate,American Museum of Natural History; Rodolfo A. Coria, director, Museo Munic......d of Mesozoic mammals. Its diet probably included lizards and other early mammals. One of the specimens was preserved with a crushed fragment of a mammal skull ( since broken remains are very rare at Uhkaa Tolgod, it is possible that the mammal was the Deltatheridium's last meal. The location of Deltatheri...New Worlds Of Order, Argentine Ants Succeed By Outnumbering The Competition
...species may alsobe affecting the feeding habits of lizards and small mammals....Lizards do really learn to recognize people
Despite their cold-blooded demeanor, lizards can form personal relationshipswith people. A team of scientists has shown that iguanas recognize their humanhandlers and greet them differently, compared with strangers. Scott McRobert and his colleagues at Saint Joseph's University inPhilad...Lizard research bolsters theory that forest edges are hotbeds of speciation
...heir study, the researchers found that open-forest lizards were smaller, had shorter limbs and a bigger head, and became sexually mature earlier than their rainforest counterparts. To test for the selective forces influencing the rapid changes in the skinks' appearance and reproductive maturity, the resear...New fossil snake with legs, reported in Science
...sitional link between mosasaurs--gigantic swimming lizards of the Cretaceous (144-65 million years ago)--and ...traditional view of small terrestrial or burrowing lizards as snake ancestors. A group of scientists, led by Olivier Rieppel of the Field Museum in Chicago, Il...Fragmented Forest, Fragmented Food
...wait" foraging tactic to capture insects and small lizards on the ground by pouncing on their prey from above...l, the researchers trapped insects and small skink lizards in forest fragments of differing sizes. The team also spent time observing the birds and recording...Venomous dinosaurs really existed
... teeth of snakes in the cobra family and poisonous lizards such as the Gila monster and the Mexican beaded lizard, Aranda-Manteca told a meeting of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology in Mexico City last month. Other palaeontologists are intrigued, but cautious. "It is not unquestionable evidence of v...Game of life allows all mating strategies
... prevailing. At least, they do for side-blotched lizards (Uta stansburiana ) on the rocky bluffs of coast...mous fertilizers. Death among the side-blotched lizards has less to do with intra-species battles than with predation by birds, Zamudio noted. Particularly...Study illustrates diversification, speciation in biological "islands"
...ship in a study of 143 species of Caribbean Anolis lizards on 147 islands. Focusing on the four largest isla... or genetic evolutionary family tree, of Caribbean lizards to estimate the number of immigration and speciation events on the islands. "The phylogeny is ind...Passport, please: A global strategy to curb invasive species
...sland with 13 species of forest birds, 12 types of lizards and three bat species. Today, only one bat species remains, three forest birds and six native lizard species. Biodiversity loss, though devastating, is not the only issue. More than one million nocturnal brown snakes now inhabit even the smallest s...Study shows top predator makes prey population vulnerable in catastrophe
...um winds greater than 150 miles per hour that blew lizards off the islands or immersed them in a ten feet wal...ns not extinct, but all of the survivors were baby lizards that must have hatched since the hurricane. They surmised that, as with the previous hurricane, a...Dinosaurs' large noses may have been key to physiological processes
...osaur relatives -- including crocodiles, birds and lizards -- helped him infer the probable location of cartilage, blood vessels and other soft tissues that made up the extinct creatures' nasal cavities. He discovered that nearly all animals share these traits, which gives weight to his assertion that previo......curs in nature in several species, such as certain lizards and insects). "We created 17 populations that mixed genes and 17 that didnt," said Rice. "In other words, we had populations that were sexual and populations that were asexual." They followed a mutation at a gene that coded for eye color, specifical...