Newly identified self-cloning lizard found in Vietnam
November 11, 2010 by Lin Edwards
(PhysOrg.com) -- Scientists have just discovered that a small lizard, long known as a restaurant food item in southeastern Vietnam, is an all-female species that reproduces through "cloning" itself.
The lizard, Leiolepis ngovantrii, was found by Ngo Van Tri from the Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology and classified by L. Lee Grismer, a herpetologist from La Sierra University in Riverside, California. The species was previously unknown to science, even though it has been eaten in the Mekong Delta region as long as anyone can remember.
Ngo first found the lizard at a restaurant in Ba Ria-Vung Tau Province, where live specimens were being kept in a tank. Ngo noticed all the individuals looked identical, and sent photographs to his colleague Grismer and his PhD student son Jesse. The Grismers identified the lizard as probably belonging to the Leiolepis genus, but in this genus males and females have different coloration, and the photographs showed only males. This made them suspect the new species consisted only of females.
The Grismers flew to Ho Chi Minh City and telephoned the restaurant to ask them to keep the lizards alive until they could get there eight hours later. By the time they arrived the “crazy guy” restaurant owner had got drunk and sold them all, but the scientists found more specimens at other restaurants, and were aided by local school children to find more in the wild. They found nearly 70 of the lizards altogether, and all were females.
The findings, published in the journal ZOOTAXA, also identified unique rows of enlarged scales on its forelimbs and bone layers (lamellae) under their toes. Grismer said the species, which lives in a transition zone between coastal sand dunes and scrub, may be a hybrid of two related species of maternal and paternal lizards that thrive in the separate habitats.
November 11, 2010 by Lin Edwards
(PhysOrg.com) -- Scientists have just discovered that a small lizard, long known as a restaurant food item in southeastern Vietnam, is an all-female species that reproduces through "cloning" itself.
The lizard, Leiolepis ngovantrii, was found by Ngo Van Tri from the Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology and classified by L. Lee Grismer, a herpetologist from La Sierra University in Riverside, California. The species was previously unknown to science, even though it has been eaten in the Mekong Delta region as long as anyone can remember.
Ngo first found the lizard at a restaurant in Ba Ria-Vung Tau Province, where live specimens were being kept in a tank. Ngo noticed all the individuals looked identical, and sent photographs to his colleague Grismer and his PhD student son Jesse. The Grismers identified the lizard as probably belonging to the Leiolepis genus, but in this genus males and females have different coloration, and the photographs showed only males. This made them suspect the new species consisted only of females.
The Grismers flew to Ho Chi Minh City and telephoned the restaurant to ask them to keep the lizards alive until they could get there eight hours later. By the time they arrived the “crazy guy” restaurant owner had got drunk and sold them all, but the scientists found more specimens at other restaurants, and were aided by local school children to find more in the wild. They found nearly 70 of the lizards altogether, and all were females.
The findings, published in the journal ZOOTAXA, also identified unique rows of enlarged scales on its forelimbs and bone layers (lamellae) under their toes. Grismer said the species, which lives in a transition zone between coastal sand dunes and scrub, may be a hybrid of two related species of maternal and paternal lizards that thrive in the separate habitats.