Ed reports on a putative new species of iguana that has been found on the Galapagos archipelago. Darwin saw two species (one marine and one land). We now have two additional land species, the Barrington land iguana Conolophus pallidus and this new one which is found only Volcan Wolf, the northernmost volcano of Isabela Island.
Paper is in press with PNAS (DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0806339106).
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It turns out that a recently discovered population of land iguanas on the Galapagos is probably a new species that represents the basal (original) form of Galapagos land iguana.
Do humans respect viagra enough? Methinks, not: There is an iguana who now is in danger of having his penis amputated after innocently consuming viagra. Yeow! It's a good thing that iguanas have hemipenes instead of one penis.
Predator-prey interactions are often viewed as evolutionary arms races; while predators improve their hunting behaviors and their ability to sneak up on their prey, the prey improve upon their abilities to detect and escape from their predators.