A team of researchers coordinated by Yoel Stuart, from the Department of Integrative Biology at the University of Austin, in Texas, has discovered that in just 15 years some lizards that live on some Florida islands have starred in what seems to be an accelerated evolutionary process . During it, they have undergone significant anatomical alterations to adapt to the pressure that different invasive species have been exerting on their populations.
As these experts explain in the journal Science, after coming into contact with the latter, the lizards began to climb the trees and found it advantageous to remain hanging from them . In this way, in just twenty generations they have developed one of their claws enormously – this one also has especially adherent scales – so that they can hold on better.
"To get an idea, if something similar had occurred, for example, in humans, it would be equivalent to our height having passed in record time from 1.75 meters to 1.95," says Stuart.
Photo: Yoel Stuart / U. of Texas at Austin
