Periodically here on Anole Annals, we have posts about three-legged lizards. The most recent such post was last year from Miami. Here’s another lizard, with a twist: it’s got four legs, sort of. Looking at the floppy left hindleg of this lizard, caught in the Bahamas two years ago. An x-ray confirms that this is odd–there’s no bone in most of that limb! I’ve never seen anything like it, and wonder how it happened.
Despite this seeming impediment, the lizard looked quite healthy, and as the video shows, could run quite adeptly up a note pad.
And here she is when we released her back at the place where we caught her. Pretty nimble!
Video courtesy Buddy and Cindy Pinder.
Professor of Biology and Director of the Living Earth Collaborative at Washington University in Saint Louis. I've spent my entire professional career studying anoles and have discovered that the more I learn about anoles, the more I realize I don't know.
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