Off the scale - new species of gecko with tear-away skin
A new species of gecko which evades predators by shedding its massive scales has been discovered by scientists working in Madagascar.
The species, named Geckolepis megalepis by the team of American German and Colombian researchers, is a type of fish gecko.
It has the largest scales of any gecko and skin specially adapted for tearing away at the slightest touch. The scales can grow back without scarring in a few weeks.
In fact, they are so adept at shedding scientists have had to use bundles of cotton wool to catch them in the past so they wouldn’t shed all their scales.
And the ease with which their scales come away makes describing and identifying the species a ‘nightmare’ according to the researchers because the scale pattern is one of the main ways to tell species apart.
In the end they decided to resort to using micro-CT scans to get a 3D picture of their skeletons, and were able to identify some skull features that establish these geckos as a new species.
I had a tie for this. The runner up is the Surinam Toad, who I might write about someday, but the winner is the Caucasian rock lizard, Darevskia (or Lacerta, the nomenclature is confusing) rostombekovi.
Now these gals are parthenogenetic, which isn’t particularly weird for a herp. There’s several species that do this. Some, like whiptails in the genus Cnemidophorus, are neat in that they actually practice female-female courting behavior and require stimulation to reproduce. Another species, the mourning gecko (Lepidodactylus lugubris), is fascinating because sometimes physical males do crop up that produce sperm… that’s completely useless. They can’t impregnate a female. But the Caucasian rock lizard is something else entirely.
Also called Rostombekov’s Lizard, this creature is unique because it’s monoclonal, meaning there’s only one genetic lineage. There never was a male. Literally every single member of this species is genetically identical to her sisters.
There are several parthenogenetic species in the genus Darevskia, but the rest of them have multiple lineages and so there’s some genetic diversity. That is absolutely not true of this particular lizard. How did this happen? What kind of speciation event led to a single clonal line for an entire species? We do know that the other Caucasian rock lizards that are strictly parthenogenetic have wider ranges than their bisexual ancestors, but this species is shamefully under-studied; we know very little about them, other than that they’re threatened by land development and they’re all genetically identical. That is unheard of in vertebrates.
So here’s to you, weird identical lizard ladies. Science can’t tell me what the hell happened to you, but you do you.
Literally. Because you’re all clones of each other.
These are Wall Lizards(Podarcis muralis), a non-native species probably deliberately introduced. This colony has been recognized since 2004, and it’s believed they originate from the Italian variety. Wall Lizards aren’t thought to be harmful to our native species at the moment, although more research is needed. The Wall Lizard Project is working on studying these colorful reptiles in the UK.
These two were quite tricky to photograph as they were behind a chain-link fence. They’re also very skittish and run off at the slightest movement. The smaller one definitely knew I was there as it kept looking at me, but it wasn’t too bothered so long as I kept still.
