Some anole lizards have a newfound superpower: They can breathe underwater by trapping air in a bubble on their snouts. What’s more, these reptiles can stay submerged for nearly 20 minutes by rebreathing exhaled air in the bubble, a new study shows.
“As anyone who has encountered one of these lizards can tell you, they dive underwater when they feel threatened,” says evolutionary biologist Chris Boccia of Queen’s University in Kingston, Canada. But how the lizards stay underwater for so long had been a mystery until now.
Boccia was inspired to investigate by a story one of his professors told him when he was a student at the University of Toronto. In 2009, evolutionary biologist Luke Mahler had been studying an endangered species of Anolis lizard in Haiti. After releasing a lizard back into a clear, shallow stream, Mahler noticed something odd. As the animal clung to the rocky bottom, it exhaled an air bubble on its snout and appeared to repeatedly suck the air in and out of the bubble. Mahler had to move on to his next research site so he couldn’t explore more. But years later, he still remembered the bubble-headed lizard.
Boccia and colleagues traveled to Costa Rica in 2017 in search of bubble-headed anoles, capturing the creatures at night. “Doing this when they’re sleeping makes things less stressful for them,” Boccia says. It’s also “easier for us to catch them.”
“As anyone who has encountered one of these lizards can tell you, they dive underwater when they feel threatened,” says evolutionary biologist Chris Boccia of Queen’s University in Kingston, Canada. But how the lizards stay underwater for so long had been a mystery until now.
Boccia was inspired to investigate by a story one of his professors told him when he was a student at the University of Toronto. In 2009, evolutionary biologist Luke Mahler had been studying an endangered species of Anolis lizard in Haiti. After releasing a lizard back into a clear, shallow stream, Mahler noticed something odd. As the animal clung to the rocky bottom, it exhaled an air bubble on its snout and appeared to repeatedly suck the air in and out of the bubble. Mahler had to move on to his next research site so he couldn’t explore more. But years later, he still remembered the bubble-headed lizard.
Boccia and colleagues traveled to Costa Rica in 2017 in search of bubble-headed anoles, capturing the creatures at night. “Doing this when they’re sleeping makes things less stressful for them,” Boccia says. It’s also “easier for us to catch them.”
