Four new lizard species discovered in Panama

This video is called Bocas Del Toro, Panama – The Nature Conservancy.

From Wildlife Extra:

Four Lizards New to Science Discovered in The Highlands of Panama

The first live endemic anoles ever discovered in this region were found in a single day during a biological research expedition at 6000 feet in the Serranía de Tabasara of the Panamian Highlands.

As recently described in Herpetologia by Dr. Gunther Köhler and his research colleagues, all of the anoles found in the cloud forest of the Serrania de Tabasara mountain chain top at 6000 feet above sea level are almost certainly endemic to this area, considering their isolated geographical habitat. This makes them the first endemic reptiles ever discovered in the Serrania de Tabasara, which is a very poorly explored region, biologically speaking.

Discovering all four in a single day was quite spectacular. …

Panama is known for its great climatic and topographical diversity, which in spite of its relatively small size of 77082 sq kilometres (3.7 times the size of Wales), includes one of the most diverse and abundant herpeto-fauna of any Central American country. Thirty-one species of the genus Anolis are known to occur in Panama, eleven of which are restricted to the highlands of lower Central America. Even against this background the scientists were initially surprised to encounter four undescribed species within a 24 h period.

Four New Species

Nevertheless, comparisons showed that these lizards represent four undescribed species. As there is Anolis gruuo, Anolis pseudokemptoni, Anolis pseudopachypus and Anolis datzorum.

See also here.

When anole lizards (Anolis roquet) arrived on Martinique more than 8 million years ago, there were four separate, smaller islands. Over time, this physical isolation should have allowed the lizards to evolve into different species, according to conventional evolutionary wisdom. But that’s not what happened: here.

Anolis lizards have been shown to have “higher intelligence” by swiftly adapting behaviour to changing circumstances: here.

Origin of tropical American burrowing reptiles by transatlantic rafting: here.

Wall lizards and slow worms of Maastricht, the Netherlands, see here. Update Maastricht lizards, July 2008: here.

Wall lizards in Maastricht, January 2010: here. September 2011: here. January 2012: here.

Dutch lizards: here.

Tropical lizards may be slow. But they aren’t dumb. They can do problem-solving tasks just as well as birds and mammals, a new study shows. A new experiment tested Puerto Rican anoles on several cognitive tasks and found they can learn and remember to solve a problem they’ve never faced before: here.

First Lizard Genome Sequenced: Green Anole Lizard’s Genome Sheds Light On Vertebrate Evolution: here.