There Is Always Something New To Learn: Lizard Eggs Can Survive Flooding

A close-up of the hatchling, un-hatched egg, and the remains of the hatched egg, we recently reported on.

It is interesting that even in fairly well-studied species, we can still find new information from chance observations and carefully planned empirical studies. Recent studies have found that brown anole (Anolis sagrei) females favor nest sites that are quite moist. Losos et al. (2003) also found that the eggs of this species can survive being inundated for up to six hours by seawater. Recently we reported on an observation of brown anole eggs that remained viable after being inundated by fresh water due to heavy rains. The difference between the two conditions is, since seawater is more saline than the content of the eggs, it can be expected that the eggs would lose water, while when exposed to excessive fresh water the water gains will exceed losses, and the eggs will swell.

The observations of other researchers and ours suggest that the eggs of A. sagrei are fairly tolerant to a wide variety of environmental conditions and can remain viable when exposed (for a few hours) to excessively wet conditions. Our observations in Taiwan also reveal that unless washed away or damaged, the eggs of A. sagrei can remain viable during the high rainfall (often as a result of typhoons) of this region.

As Aristotle (384 BC – 322 BC) said, “In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous.” And I would like to encourage everyone to look into their chance observations and to describe them, not only in chat forums, but also in journals as natural history notes. That way the information is not only disseminated, but may also be accessible to a greater audience and for generations to come.