#Leiocephalus carinatus

[herpsandbirds]

Northern Curly-tailed Lizard (Leiocephalus carinatus), family Leiocephalidae, Evergreen Cemetery, Fort Lauderdale, Broward county, Florida, USA

Introduced into southern Florida, from the Caribbean. Native range is Cuba, The Bahamas, and the Caymans.

photograph by Brian Henderson

#curly tailed lizard #leiocephalus #leiocephalidae #lizard #reptile #herpetology #animals #nature #caribbean #north america

[thisadventurouslife]

3/2/21

Leiocephalus carinatus, or the northern curly-tailed lizard, seen outside Hotel Belleza. These lizards were initially introduced to Palm Beach, Florida in an attempt to control sugar cane pests. They can grow up to 10 inches (26 cm). When handled, this lizard will play dead. (X)

#northern curly-tailed lizard #Leiocephalus carinatus #lizards #reptiles #animals #wildlife #this adventurous life #personal #wild animals #Miami #Florida #adventure #explore #explorer of the world

[shinyx2]

(via Deceptively chonky lizard breaks an unfortunate, strange record)

“Feasting on greasy pizza comes with its consequences for humans, but for a curly-tailed lizard on the eastern beaches of Florida, the results were especially crappy.

The female curly-tailed lizard in question, technically known as a Leiocephalus carinatus, was living near a beach-side pizza shop. This, unfortunately, meant that she developed the proclivity for chomping down on leftover pizza grease, as well as sand. This diet was supplemented by a more traditional meal for curly-tailed lizards — bugs.

A team of University of Florida herpetologists came across the lizard while tracking down reptile samples in Florida's Cocoa Beach. Their recent analysis of her revealed something strange: Buried inside the lizard was an unusually large fecal bolus, colloquially known as a ball of poop.

By the time the researchers found the lizard, the bolus had grown to account for 80 PERCENT of the lizard's entire body mass. It's the largest bolus, relative to body size, EVER DISCOVERED in a living animal.

#Leiocephalus carinatus #impaction #curly-tailed lizard #poor thing

[thingsonmydragon]

Curlytail lizard basking outside Walgreens

#reptile #lizard #curlytail lizard #leiocephalus carinatus #curly-tail lizard

[typhlonectes]

Cuban curly-tailed lizards, Leiocephalus c. carinatus, Cuba

photograph by Dick Bartlett (used w/ permission)

#cuba #lizard #reptile #herpetology #animals #nature #caribbean

[campodefiori9]

Leiocephalus carinatus, curly-tailed Lizard at the Anne Kolb nature center , Hollywood , Florida. They are an invasive species

#lizard #reptile #florida #nature #wildlife #wild #life #sony #grey #brown #cute #love #animal #tropical #photography #art #vision #light #creative #sun #photo #photooftheday #photographer #travelphotography #naturephotography #creature

#lizard #reptile #florida #nature #wildlife

[sciencespies]

Super-Constipated Florida Lizard Breaks Records With Gargantuan Poop

https://sciencespies.com/news/super-constipated-florida-lizard-breaks-records-with-gargantuan-poop/

Super-Constipated Florida Lizard Breaks Records With Gargantuan Poop

When Natalie Claunch and her colleagues plucked the portly northern curly-tailed lizard (Leiocephalus carinatus) from the site of a beach-side pizza shop in Florida, she suspected she knew the reason behind the reptile’s rotundness. The tubby creature, whose two-inch-long midsection was swollen to the size of a golf ball, was a female, and probably pregnant, the University of Florida herpetologist mused.

But when Claunch and her colleagues began to poke around the animal’s abdomen, they didn’t find any evidence of eggs. Instead, “it just felt like it was full of Silly Putty,” Claunch says in a statement.

The lizard lady’s innards weren’t full of burgeoning babies, the team soon realized. They were instead bursting with poop—22 grams of it in total, enough to account for a third of the poor creature’s entire body volume, and 80 percent of its total weight. The tremendous turd, which had gotten lodged in the very constipated lizard’s gastrointestinal tract, now holds the record for the largest mass of digested food matter ever discovered in a living animal, Claunch’s team reports in a recent note in the journal Herpetological Review.

A CT scan of a curly-tailed lizard with a 22 gram mass of digested food in its belly.

(Edward Stanley / Florida Museum)

Everybody poops, of course. But bowel movements aren’t always regular, and the researchers suspect this unlucky lizard fell into this precarious situation after gorging herself on refuse from the Cocoa Beach pizza shop where she was found. Her regular intake of grease, mixed in with accidental gulps of sand and the more typically reptilian fare of insects and other lizards, had seeded a stubborn knot of feces that refused to budge from her body, reports Nina Pullano for Inverse.

In truth, the researchers’ find had some poop precedence. Twice before, Claunch’s team had happened upon curly-tailed lizards teeming with turds that comprised more than 30 percent of their body weight. So when the researchers failed to find evidence of eggs, they stuck the reptile in a CT scanner that revealed that poop had literally turned things pear-shaped.

“I was blown away by how little room there was left for all the other organs,” Florida Museum researcher Edward Stanely says in the statement. “It has only a tiny space left over in its ribcage for the heart, lungs and liver. It must have been a very uncomfortable situation for the poor lizard.”

​

Left: the live lizard, with its distended stomach. Right: the dissected lizard, with its 22-gram mass removed.

(Claunch et al., Herpetological Review, 2020)

Northern curly-tailed lizards are native to the Bahamas, the Cayman Islands and Cuba, but were intentionally introduced to Florida in the early 1940s to combat sugar cane pests. Now the invasive, omnivorous reptiles will nosh on just about anything, laying waste to everything from bugs to bits of human refuse. “They’re like sparrows or gulls at a fry stand, without the chirping or swooping,” Claunch says in the statement.

But this dietary flexibility is a double-edged sword: Curly-tailed lizards aren’t picky enough to pass over grub that can clog their guts.

Because they aren’t native to Florida, curly-tailed lizards captured for research can’t be released back into the wild. The lizard, whose gut was blocked by the deuce she couldn’t drop, also appeared to be starving. To better understand their subject’s condition, the researchers humanely euthanized her, then took more precise measurements of the fecal lump.

Though this plucky little creature is no longer with us, she will live on in the scientific literature. She may not be the reigning constipation champion forever—but her title will certainly be tough to take, according to Claunch. “We are unaware of any records from wild or captive animals that approach our finding,” she tells Inverse. “We hope for the sake of the individual animals that there are not any out there!”

#News

#News

[set-the]

Leiocephalus carinatus

Northern curley-tailed lizard

#lizard #cuba #animal photography #animal #animals #reptile #wildlife #nature #nature photography #travelphotographer #leiocephalus #travelling #traveling #photography

[ls2swift]

Curlytail Lizard (Leiocephalus carinatus) #herping #bahamas #wildlife #fieldherping #wildlifephotography #herpetology #herpsofig #herpingtheglobe #research #wild #canon #lizard #citsci #herpmapper (at Nassau, New Providence)

#wild #wildlife #canon #herpingtheglobe #lizard #bahamas #herping #wildlifephotography #herpetology #herpsofig #herpmapper #citsci #fieldherping #research

[turtle-stack]

The best gift in life is a lizard.

#lizards #curly-tailed lizard #Leiocephalus carinatus

[lizardsrcute]

"Florida" Curly Tail Lizard (Leiocephalus carinatus) Eats From Hand.

SOURCE: Venominme - http://www.youtube.com/user/Venominme

#lizard #curly tail lizard #Florida curly tail lizard #Leiocephalus carinatus #invasive species #adorable though

[ls2swift]

Curlytail Lizard (Leiocephalus carinatus) #herping #florida #invasive #wildlife #fieldherping #wildlifephotography #herpetology #herpsofig #herpingtheglobe #research #wild #canon #lizard #citsci #herpmapper (at Nassau, New Providence)

#wild #invasive #wildlifephotography #wildlife #herpingtheglobe #herping #canon #fieldherping #herpsofig #herpmapper #herpetology #research #lizard #citsci #florida

[ls2swift]

Curlytail Lizard (Leiocephalus carinatus) #herping #bahamas #wildlife #fieldherping #wildlifephotography #herpetology #herpsofig #herpingtheglobe #research #wild #canon #lizard #citsci #herpmapper (at Nassau, New Providence)

#bahamas #wild #herpmapper #fieldherping #lizard #herpingtheglobe #herping #wildlife #herpsofig #research #canon #wildlifephotography #herpetology #citsci

[ls2swift]

Curlytail Lizard (Leiocephalus carinatus) #herping #florida #invasive #wildlife #fieldherping #wildlifephotography #herpetology #herpsofig #research #wild #canon #lizard #citsci #herpmapper

#fieldherping #canon #herpsofig #wildlife #herping #wildlifephotography #research #citsci #invasive #wild #herpmapper #lizard #herpetology #florida