New Dragon Lizard species discovered in the Phillippines
33 replies, posted
[quote]Hunted for its tasty flesh, the brightly colored forest monitor lizard can grow to more than six feet in length but weighs only about 22 pounds (10 kg), said Rafe Brown of the University of Kansas, whose team confirmed the find.
"It lives up in trees, so it can't get as massive as the Komodo dragon, a huge thing that eats large amounts of fresh meat," Brown said by telephone. "This thing is a fruit-eater and it's only the third fruit-eating lizard in the world."
Discovering such a large vertebrate species is extremely rare, Brown said. The lizard, a new species of the genus Varanus, is skittish and able to hide from humans, its primary predators, which could explain why it has gone undetected by scientists for so long.
Biologists first saw photographs of the big, skinny lizard in 2001, when those surveying the area passed hunters carrying the lizards' colorful carcasses, but the species at that point had never been given a scientific identification.
In the next few years, Brown said, ethnobiologists kept hearing stories "about these two kinds of lizard that everyone liked to eat because their flesh tasted better than the ones that lived on the ground; this thing was described as bigger and more brightly colored."
The two kinds of lizard described by the local people were two names for the same animal, Brown said.
CLAW SCRATCHES ON TREES
In 2009, graduate students at the end of a two-month expedition kept seeing signs of the big lizard. There were claw-scratches on trees and clumps of pandanus trees, whose fruit the lizard prefers.
The clumps indicated that the lizards had eaten pandanus fruit and then excreted the seeds in clusters.
"It was literally in the last couple days of the expedition, we were running out of money and food and this was the payoff: they finally got this gigantic animal," Brown said.
Hunters who had heard of the team's interest brought a barely-alive adult male lizard to their camp. The team euthanized the animal and did genetic tests that confirmed it as a unique species, Brown said.
DNA analysis showed there was a deep genetic divergence between the new lizard and its closest relative, Gray's monitor lizard, which is also a fruit-eater but lives on the southern end of Luzon, rather than the northern end where the forest monitor lizard lives.
"They are extremely secretive," Brown said of the new species. "I think that centuries of humans hunting them have made the existing populations ... very skittish and wary and we never see them. They see and hear us before we have a chance to see them, they scamper up trees before we have a chance to come around."
These findings were published in the Royal Society Journal Biology Letters, with additional work by scientists in the Philippines and the Netherlands.[/quote][URL="http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6355L920100406?loomia_ow=t0:s0:a49:g43:r1:c0.190476:b32607932:z0"]Source.[/URL]
:byodood:
[sp]apparently it tastes sweet, probably comes from all those sweet young virgins its eaten.[/sp]
[IMG]http://sparkwire.thanez.net/SendPresents/uploads/wwwreuterscom.jpg[/IMG]
[IMG]http://www.reuters.com/resources/r/?m=02&d=20100406&t=2&i=87838207&w=600&r=2010-04-06T230722Z_01_BTRE6351S8E00_RTROPTP_0_SCIENCE-LIZARD[/IMG]
Pictures?
[img]http://www.komodo-dragon.net/images/komodo-dragon-feeding.jpg[/img]
A fucking challenger appears.
[QUOTE=Abstrakt;21208367][img]http://www.komodo-dragon.net/images/komodo-dragon-feeding.jpg[/img]
A fucking challenger appears.[/QUOTE]
Oh christ. Why couldn't they have discovered something not quite as scary? :smithicide:
[QUOTE=Kai-ryuu;21208428][img]http://imgkk.com/i/s3rq.jpg[/img][/QUOTE]
Quoting as it makes me cool.
Interesting new lizard. And the alleged sweetness of its flesh makes it no wonder why its been hunted so. Probably should add this creature to the "to-be-preserved/to-be-farmed" list.
Relax, we won't have real dragons for millennia yet.
Wait what, how did this happen. This timewarp is impossible!
But can it fly?
[QUOTE=Kai-ryuu;21208428][img]http://imgkk.com/i/s3rq.jpg[/img][/QUOTE]
thread is now about this picture
I'd let that tap me any day <3~
[QUOTE=BCell;21208809]I do hope it doesn't breath fire[/QUOTE]
what the fuck is up with this post, it keeps getting bumped to the bottom each time someone posts.
[QUOTE=Sparkwire;21210203]what the fuck is up with this post, it keeps getting bumped to the bottom each time someone posts.[/QUOTE]
I was thinking the same thing. When I posted, something really weird happened to the script or something...
[QUOTE=Kai-ryuu;21208428][img_thumb]http://imgkk.com/i/s3rq.jpg[/img_thumb][/QUOTE]
Dragon should reward you with gold member for that
[QUOTE=B1N4RY!;21210228]Dragon should reward you with gold member for that[/QUOTE]
i dont get it.
I do hope it does breath fire
[QUOTE=BCell;21208809]I do hope it doesn't breath fire[/QUOTE]
I do hope it evolves!
What the fuck man,
What the fuck.
Cool colors
I do hope it doesn't breath fire
[QUOTE=Sparkwire;21210203]what the fuck is up with this post, it keeps getting bumped to the bottom each time someone posts.[/QUOTE]
Testing theory.
Damn it, I broke the awesome. At any rate, this is kind of cool.
And, give me dumbs please, I don't quite understand the photoshopped cartoon helmet on the dragon. I recognize it, but I just can't put my finger on where I recognize it from... :frown:
[QUOTE=Kai-ryuu;21208428][img]http://imgkk.com/i/s3rq.jpg[/img][/QUOTE]
where's that helmet shopped from
is it from a digimon pic or something
because I thing I remember a digimon wearing that helmet
or is it from somewhere else
[B][I][U]I ARE CONFUSED[/U][/I][/B] :(
[QUOTE=killkill85;21300484]where's that helmet shopped from
is it from a digimon pic or something
because I thing I remember a digimon wearing that helmet
or is it from somewhere else
[B][I][U]I ARE CONFUSED[/U][/I][/B] :([/QUOTE]
It's from a dargon anime.
global warming
[I]These lizards have two penises[/I] (peni actually) as said in an article from my local paper (I live in the Netherlands).
I'll take a picture from it later on.
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