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Oh hey, it's the cup of hazelnut flavored truck stop coffee you're too ashamed to admit you love. Alie Ward back with another episode Homologies Who Tiny chameleons, drooling dragons, venomous thick boys, legless lizards, and more. But first, thank you. Thank you to everyone supporting ologies on Patreon. Thank you to everyone who gets ologies merged from ologiesmerge dot com. Thanks to everyone keeping ologies up in the science charts and for telling your friends and family and foes maybe
those overlap. And thank you for leaving such nice reviews that you know that I creep on days when I'm wondering do people like this? So to prove it, I read a fresh one. For example, Katie Derek says, prepare to change your life. This podcast is life changing. Did you hear me?
Life changing?
All caps? They say, Start with the episode on Fear, and then listen to every single other one. And thank you to everyone who listens as they do field work in Alaska, or do chores, or paint your kids' rooms, or do the dishes, or go on road trips. I'm honored to be in your pocket. Okay, lizards Sorology, let's
talk about it. I guess how frickin elated I was when one day I was very busy lamenting that my wonderful Herpetology episode with doctor David Stein covered too many scaly bases, and then I stumbled upon a Wikipedia page identifying herpetology subfields. My eyes landed on the most beautiful word sorology, some angels saying some clouds parted, just a single tear race down my cheek. And I looked at a window and I whispered to this guy, fucking love
lizards man, sorrows and Greek means lizards. I had just the rologists to make all of our dreams come true. I followed her on Twitter for months and months, and on Wednesdays she posts a game called hashtag find that Lizard. And these are photos from her field work that you swear zooming over all of the pixels. They got to be a hoax. There's no lizards in there, but in fact there is a lizard. So Find that Lizard made
me love lizards and Wednesdays even more so. I had her over to have a real time find that Lizard session among some local grasses and cacti. And also my neighbor Donna, who's awesome and wondered why I was in my bushes. She's a lizard scientist. We're looking for lizards.
Yeah, this is Aaron. Hi. Nice to me.
She used the pan on me always in my gun. Really we were looking.
It was like carto frocks. Are they I guess.
They're warming themselves?
Right?
Yeah, So she's like a professional lizard scientist. And I see a beer bottle. I don't know what species of beer bottle.
It might be a.
Genus Budweiser species. Light Every once in a while, I think I see something out of the corner of my mind.
Oh, yeah, you see it? Yes, Oh my god, I thought it was hallucinating.
Does it ever happen where you? You don't know if you saw a lizard or if you hallucinated.
Yes, yeah, all the time. Everything is a lizard. That bush is a lizert, that rock is a loser, that piece of grass is a lizard. I'm just like movement, it must be a lizard.
So we ran with it, and we crouched near a cactus to watch for some tiny movements and listened for scuttly rustling, and.
We saw three dag lizards.
And then we settled into my couch to chat about everything from Gecko's anti gravity grip to Komodo dragon mouthed to Godzilla, to her wildly popular find that Lizard hashtag game on Twitter, to field season, to heal a monster sightings, close encounters with lions, balls of snoozy lizards, getting hooga as hell in a hybernaculum, to some sound advice on social anxiety and how to succeed in literally any field
or ambition. So spread out on a rock, soak in the warmth of this array of Science Sunshine roologist Aaron McGhee.
Now you are I looked this up.
You're a zerologist. Yes, did you know that before?
I did? Not? Really, No, no one really uses that word. But you know, I'm very happy it exists. It works. It works.
Now when you tell people what you do, like at a dinner party, say, or someone's just introducing you, do you tell them that you're a lizard scientist?
Yeah, pretty much. Yeah.
Hopefully people are curious enough to ask you like leading questions so that you can dive in. And I mean I would love to leave a dinner party and know more about lizards. Who wouldn't That's true? Now, why lizards? Are they your favorite kind of wildlife? Or did you just like being out in nature and field work and then you found that you started to do a lot of researcher.
So I always knew that I wanted to work with animals from like birth to undergrad I was like, I'm going to be a veterinarian, and like you know, I was like one of those teachers type of kids, but like in the second grade, this one time, this lady was like, yeah, you can't be a veterinarian. And apparently, according to my parents. I told her, off, what did you just say to me? Because because I got sent to the principal's office, and like in my family, you
don't get sent to the office. You just don't do that, and so like they had to come give me and I was like listen. But then I got to undergrad and I went and I talked to like some met school students and they were like, yeah, we have friends
in med school and they are miserable. I think that the requirements of going through the process of met school are just different, where it's a lot more intense because you actually have to save these animals lives and treat them and you know, give them medicine, and you don't want to overdose somebody's pet. So pressure's on. Yeah, So Vets, thank you, Vets. I appreciate you guys. Show you my Pukah, my dog, his vet is awesome.
But you were like, maybe maybe not for me, right At some point, when did you get to pivot a little bit?
So my freshman year of undergrad, I did this program called h COP that's the acronym.
Aaron went to Howard University in Washington, d C. And participated in h COP Health Careers Opportunity Program, and a mentor there introduced her to doctor George Minnendorff, a her petologist, who became her undergrad advisor.
And then one of my other friends was like, hey, you like animals and you also need money to pay for this school. You should apply it to the Environmental Biology Scholars program.
She applied, and she got in and got to poke around in some different types of fieldwork to see what floated her boat.
One guy was working with fish, and I was not really interested in fish like that, and so then I started working with lizards. And then I went out to the cher Cow Mountains for the first time the summer after my freshman year, and I was like, wow, this is perfect. I get to be outside, I get to catch lizards, and this is like, you know, doing this work is like it's hard, but it's not like vet school hard. I was like, this is like the perfect, this is perfect everything that means all my criteria.
Aaron says she realized doing field work that there are still so many questions about ecology and animals that were never answered, and that really excited her, and she graduated from Howard with a bachelor's in biology and then headed out to the University of Arizona to get her Masters in Wildlife Conservation and Management through the School of Natural Resources and the Environment, and she's now working toward her
PhD in the same field. And speaking of being outstanding in the field when you are catching lizards, to walk me through what that is like in the field, Like how early do you have to get to a field site?
What is it like?
Like where do you start?
All right, So for the projects that I've been doing, I've had already I scouted, you know, sites, and so we would start about eight in the morning or so, because like for the most part, the lizards aren't out like super super early. You want it to be warm by the time they get out, and normally about eight eight thirty ish it's warm enough. I love that these lizards are.
Like to like like eight thirty nine, you know.
And that's also perfect for me because I am not an early bird all so, like birds are out. I was just like, listen, you can't do it. I guess there's there's no like the early lizard gets the fly. You don't hear that. Yeah, So we'll get we'll get up, have breakfast, then we go grab all of our stuff. We have to make sure that we all have our lizard poles, and everybody has to make sure that their line is good and then it's not too short. It's not too long.
And by the way, has a very cool piece of equipment called a lasso and it's essentially a little knot of silk thread and it's on a fishing pole.
She can extend it out and then she can loop it around a lizard. She's got the lizard. So we have like a whole fanny pack system. And so like the fanny pack has like the notebook that we take our and pencils, pins, rollers, scissors, all that kind of stuff that we need. And then like we just pass off the fanning pack to the people who meet them, who meets it at whatever time. And so then when you're like you walk through however all far you need to get to get into the site, and then once
you're in the site, pull is in hand. So that way when you see a lizard, you're ready to you know, go for it. And so then at that point we're just walking up and down the site. However, many times that we've decided that we're going to walk up and down the site, Normally it's just walk up once, walk down once, and then leave if there are no lizards, and occasionally in some sites that have been no lizards,
it's pretty quick. And then in sites where there are a lot of lizards, you know, we might spend two three hours in a site catching lizards.
This is such a stupid question. But what is a lizard? I mean, we're talking a reptile. Yes, we're talking not a snake. It has legs, although there are legless lizards. Yeah, correct, But what differentiates a lizard from say, a snake, other than legs. I feel like somewhere in between a toad and a snake lies a lizard, like an a e ven diagram of limbs and such.
But I'm pretty sure it has something to do with the bones at their head shapes and at their skulls, something to do with how they're back bones and stuff that makes it together.
Turns out that defining a lizard's isn't the easiest because there's so much variety in them, y'all. There are lizards that have venom, that have third eye organs at the top of their heads, They have scary Shakespearean collars. There are ones that dive and eat algae in the sea. Others that walk on water what like a Jesus, They can take down a water buffalo that can clone themselves. There are wall crawlers, nights singers, bloodshooters. Also, it's early
in the episode, but I'll go there. The males have two dicks, why not travel with a spear, But don't worry. Female lizards are known to have two clitterises and researchers don't know what they're for, but you know, maybe they should just ask. But the book definition of a lizard is any suborder of reptiles distinguished from the snakes by a fused, inseparable lower jaw, a single temporal opening that's
a skull hole. Kiddos, external ears, eyes with movable lids, and two pairs total four well differentiated functional limbs, which could be lacking though in burrowing forms. So there's your definition of a lizard. And also, yes, there are wormy looking legless lizards. Also, I just google image searched lizard ears because I just needed like a little lose acute and somehow a popped a photo of a person who had gaged ears with alive a knoll resting in the
rubbery hammock of this person's lobe flesh. So that's enough of that. Also, some lizards like green and knoles and monitor lizards and komodo dragons which are monitor lizards, are super smart. Researchers say, maybe I on par with some bird species. So does Aaron find that when she's out catch and releasing them for her data.
So it depends on a lizard, okay, some lizards are smarter than other lizards, okay. And it also depends on if they've been caught before really, because then they've learned they now know what it is. And so sometimes like a lizard will see you and it's just like they're not going to bother me, or they don't see me.
My camouflage is good enough, and then you can just walk right on, like right up on them, or like sometimes they'll see you and they'll run, and then you have to run with them, and you're chasing a lizard, and you know, sometimes it takes like there or four people to catch one lizard because you're just like.
Hmm, Aaron told me that to track them, her research team, like her petologists all over the world, sometimes has to snip off a few toes in a certain order as a marker. So toe clipping has its critics, of course, but catching and releasing lizards to monitor them, especially with climates are changing and water sources drying up, is important to the work that herpers are doing. And she says she takes just the minimum she needs for identification, and I did not ask what she does with the toes.
I started researching to see if you can buy small bags of lizard toes, like maybe she could put them to use and sell them to a site for witches. And then that landed me on a Wickan page to see if they actually do use lizard toes for anything. Honestly, they didn't have anything about lizard toes, just some helpful info on candles and herbs and crystals. Before I knew it, I was on wick and Living reading a really great
article about gratitude that really made my day. I was like, thanks, witches, most of you are probably vegan anyway, So yeah, if wild lizards don't respond by name, how else can you recognize them?
Well, I also paint mark them on their back, so I'll just go a little number. How long do lizards live?
Are you seeing the same ones?
Like?
Later on in the field season maybe next year.
So they can live generally a little while. And it also depends on the species, but like the lizards that I'm looking at normally don't get too too much older than five or so. And the wild, Like my undergrad advisor was just like he would see this one big male lizard year after year, just like displaying for everyone. And one day it got swooped up by a bird. Oh did he see it? Yeah, he was there for it.
That's pretty opportune, I'd have to say, like in terms of getting some closure on where that lizard went right, you know, Oh my god, was he just like so screaming?
I probably would be like, no, he didn't go until all that details. You do see them year after year, you're like, hey, what's up to you again, And they like to hang out in the same areas for the most.
Part, so it's not like they're finding a different rock. They're like, this is my rock pretty much. You come to my rock, shocker, I'm here on this rock again. It's not like they're going to move to New Jersey out of nowhere.
And so for the most part, muscle lizards didn't move more than five meters and so we would see lizards year after year after year in the same places. I look back like five years because my undergrad adviser, George, he has been going out to the same site for you know, like forty years, so he had all this historical data that I could look at and grab onto and what do lizards usually eat? Are they out there eating mostly bugs? So again it depends on the species.
But like the lizards that I work with, like they eat like small insects.
Do they do the thing where they throw their tongue out or no? Is that just chameleons?
Okay, sure if it's just chamelions.
Is a chameleon a lizard?
Oh okay, just one of those where I was like, I don't know.
It's got these foldable toes, you know, it's like, yeah, its toes are like a peda pocket. I was like, I don't know, man, maybe it's not even a lizard.
Yeah, no, it's totally a lizard. It seems like a.
Souped up lizard because it's like a curly tail. Yes, weird toes, Yes, I change colors, and I have a telescopic tongue, Like it's got cone eyes. Why did a chameleon get all these features, got lucky, yes man? Okay. Side note. I tried to research this and types of
lizard tongues was turning up relatively little. Then I tried to get fancier searching for lingual morphology in lizard species, and I found this paper, Evolution and Function of Lingual Shape in Lizards with emphasis on elongation, extensibility, and chemical sampling. But that was more about sniffing. More on that later, So then I went on a chameleon deep dive and I had to hold onto my butt for the info
that came next. So Number one, chameleons tongues can be up to twice the length of their bodies, and they're made of bone and tendon and elastic tissue, folded like an accordion, and then they stretch it back like a bow and then they flick that thing out accelerating you ready for this car buff people from zero to sixty
and one to one hundredths of a second. There are over two hundred species of chameleons, and there are some they're so that they can sit on the tip of a match, which I hope they only do for nacchio photo ops because imagine sitting on a giant ball of highly flammable explosives, just so people could get an idea
of like how much you weigh nightmares on nightmares? Okay, but to summarize, these little buddies are native to Africa, Madagascar, Sri Lanka, Southern Europe, and they have prehensile, curly tails that can grab stuff. They have swively eyes with cone shaped lids that can move independently from each other, and they can switch from monocular to binocular vision when they need it. They can change their skin color by moving the spaces between pigment crystals under their skin. Certain chameleons
have bones that glow under UV light. And yes, their toes face each other and this is called zagodactyl. In case you're ever playing scrabble and you have a Z and two ys, I thought, damn, these lizards must be the newest models on the market. But they've identified species around sixty million years old. They may be up to one hundred million years old, so they have some special features. But how do other lizards eat? Do they just order pizzas and keep up on life.
So a lot of times some lizards they kind of like are sitting weight predators, so they'll just like, hmmm, I see you run up and then go back to where they were preached.
So they'll just use locomotion to go in and catch a fly or whatever. Yeah, and now do you have to see if their diets changing year to year, like if there's different insects or they're they're hungry, or one year and then another.
So I was looking at if they were eating emerging aquatic insects out of streams, because no one has actually looked at whether like their food sources are purely terrestrial or if they're any aquatic ones. And so because of you know, climate change and stream drying and drought and all that, I was like, well, if they're eating these aquatic insects and they're important, then you know they could be negatively impacted when these streams go away.
So how does she figure out what wild lizards are eating. Well, she sequences their poop. They're not using it anymore, Okay, she might as well. She figured this is the same technique they use with lions and tigers and bears. Oh my, So we were in the middle of talking about poop and I got distracted by something on my porch. I'm so sorry.
There's a lizard on the pole.
Okay, see that pole. I swear I didn't hallucinate, but there.
Was a big western.
Fence lizard on that pole.
I believe it went on the other side. I believe you.
I got so excited and ducked out of you. It was there though, it was taunting us. So you figure, if you can do it with big.
Cats, why not People have like the DNA sequences of you know, aquatic insects. So if they have it and then I have the poop, and then the DNA is going to be in the poop boom, only makes sense.
Do you think you're the first person to analyze lizard poop? What's the most beautiful lizard?
The most beautiful lizard? Well, for me, it's gonna have
to like slappers share by y'all. Spiny lizard has a very special place in my heart really always be, you know, my favorite, the most beautiful to me, Yeah, because it was just like once that was like the main species that I worked with, like during my undergrad and so like for me, it's just like a symbol of like the world opening mm hmmm, like I did it and like that was like my whole new world because I was like, I didn't know that this was like a thing that I could do, and now I do, and
you're now my special lizard.
Quick aside, So the yarrow spiny lizard goes by scaloporous euro v informal occasions and it is quite a stunner. Their backs can have an orange glow, kind of like an edison bulb in a good first date bar, and its tail has this gray ombre that fades into this brilliant turquoise color. It's so gorgeous. It's the kind of blue you would see in pictures of like shallow tropical waters in instagram vacation photos of a person that you hate. Follow Aaron explains.
What do they look like? So they are a mediumish sized lizard. The males get these nice blue patches on their stomachs and on the other side of their stomachs and on their throat. They can get like really like brilliant like oranges colors on their back and blue and like there's they're a little variable, but they're really pretty and especially in the sunlight.
Why do you think they have those blue patches? What do you what does that sir, what purpose so mating?
And to show you know whose boss? Don't come over in my territory. I am the big bat male. You see how dark this blue is? You see it? You see it?
Go away? Really, you're like, unless you're a female, in which case, come closer.
Right?
Is there any truth to the flim flam that if you rub a lizard on its stomach it'll get like so entranced you can just hang out with it for a minute.
No, I mean once you catch it. It's just I mean sometimes they're gonna like try to bite you, and then some of them are just like, well this is the end. I'm just gonna sit here now.
They're like you got me, like game over pretty much. But really you just mark them and then let them go again. Right, Yeah, so it's kind of a happy ending, right.
Yeah, they're live. Still, they're live. Something. They might be missing a couple of toads.
But and now you have a poodle. You don't have any pet lizards? No, okay, what do you think about pet lizards?
As long as you know how to care for them and you do so properly, and you are not getting any illegal pets or things that are bringing disease because you went through a person or a company that is just like, well, we're just gonna grab up these lizards and send them around. So as long as you do it responsible, then I don't see any issue with it. So also, don't get like a baby iguana and then let it loose in the backyard when it gets ugly, exactly. Yeah,
because like like shelters do take lizards. You have an unconventional pet and you don't want it anymore and you're worried about getting rid of it, you can take it to the shelter. They'll take it. They'll take your middle aged scally iguana.
Yeah, I know. I do feel like everyone gets a baby iguana and then they're like, oh right, this thing's gonna live here right yeah with me ps Florida, you are overrun with iguanas right now. So the green iguana in particular has just flourished after folks who got them as pets in the eighties bailed and let them loose in the bushes. And then more hurricanes that we're having recently blew them over from some distant lands, and then
also global warming just keeping Florida nice and toasty. So what is the problem with having eighty feral iguanas in your yard. I'm glad you asked. South Florida residents do not enjoy swimming pools felled with guana turts, which can also carry salmonilla. Also, iguanas can grow to be five feet long. They love to eat gardens, and they also like to eat power lines, meaning sometimes there are power outages because iguanas have eaten the power lines. Sometimes they
turn up in people's toilets. It sounds like an iguana party, but the state's not into it.
So what is a Florida to do?
Well? The Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission released the directive a few months ago that people can and should kill them, quote whenever possible. Did this lead to a Florida man iguana hunting but shooting his neighbor's pool guy on accident, Yes, yes it did, non fatally, but still so the Fish Commission had to release another statement just a few weeks ago, saying kill them humanely. I eat quickly, preferably with a bow and arrow or traps or a rock, and try
not to shoot each other. Essentially, now another option, eat them. Locals apparently refer to iguanas as boyoste arbalas or chicken of the trees, and historically they're a menu item in Western Mexico people eat iguanas all the time, so Sunshine Staters are like, why the hell not. Florida Sun Sentinel published a helpful video on how to cook and fashion
these local pests into burritos. The meat is lean, the protein contents high, and reports are it has a body like a rabbit with a bony, fishy kind of tail, but tastes like chicken.
Is this chicken what I have? Or is this fish?
What are some flim flammeries about lizards that you feel like myths that you would like to bust.
They're not slimy, for one, and for the most part, they're not gonna hurt you. They want to be left alone. Like if you see a lizard, there's no need to be afraid. They're not scary.
Are there people who are afraid of lizards?
There are people, like I counter lots of people who are afraid of lizards, and I get it. But then it's just like, but it's a lizard. It doesn't want to bother you. It just wants to eat the bugs mine here.
That seems like a great thing to have in your house. Like, hey, if you find a lizard in your house, should you just let it hang out or should you escort it outside?
You should probably escort it outside because it might not be enough bugs in your house for it to lift off of and need some water sources. And it probably got in there by accident. It probably was hanging out on the door and you open the door and it got scared, and so like it just went inside by accident. It probably wants to go back outside.
Okay, So don't keep it as your like personal extermination service. Yeah, I could see having just like a house gecko that you're like, get it, get it.
You know, it's a mosquito. Get it.
Let's talk about Aaron's viral Twitter game that runs on Wednesdays called hashtag Find Lizard. So part of the reason we went lizard hunting is that I'm obsessed with fine that lizard, and I wanted to experience it with its creator.
Boy, howdy was it? Damn throw I see im.
He's just chilling out. I can't believe I didn't bring my phone to take a picture. This would be a good find that lizard. He's playing with.
Us I figured it would want to be in something like this because it's easy, though half somewhere to hide, and it's also pretty decent to get some sun.
Yeah, you've made finding a lizard like seeing a celebrity in the grocery store, you know what I mean? So you have you've taken over my Wednesdays yea with find that Lizard? Yeah, hashtag find that lizard. It's my favorite thing to do on the internet. You and Kate swift Crow or no, It's like Wednesdays of the Best. Oh and then who's poop is? This is also another fun game? But find that lizard? I like, wait until it's five o'clock Central time, it's gonna go up. I know I've
got a couple hours to find the lizard. Yeah, how did you start this? And why is it taken over my brain?
So I just posted a picture one day because I was I was upset. Well, I wasn't upset. I was just you know, energized, Like I was just you know, really hot in the moment because I was I was trying to catch this lizard and she was giving me like a really good chase, and she almost got away, and it's like I was about to give up, and then I looked back. I was like, am I really going to give up on catching this lizard today? And
then I saw it. I saw her and she was in this tree, and I was like, I almost missed her. Her camouflage was so good, but she was a recapture. So she had this bright orange five on her back because I had already marked her, and so I was like, if it wasn't for this five on her back, I would have missed her. Look guys. And then people were like, I know you said she has a mark, but I don't see her, and so I was like really, and then they were and then people were just like, yeah,
this is fun. I think it gets their competitive nature going because they're just like, there's not a lizard in this photo, and I'm like, there is, and they're like, don't you touch that phone, don't you take.
I'm still looking. I'm still looking for the lizard. Do you have your phone on you? So when you're in the field, you see a lizard and before you advance on the lizard, you're like, I gotta get a picture this. No one's gonna be able to see this lizard. Yeah, I totally do that. How many do you have in a backlog, because I want to know that, like we're covered for a long time with this fifty two, at least please.
You go to week Sometimes sometimes I do, yeah, until I make this podcast. Pretty much, it's just like, well if I can, if I'm in the space and I can get a bunch of pictures, I will like there has to be some because like I recently had to upgrade my storage with iCloud because they're like, yeah, you have too many pictures. Well, I'm not deleting anything right now because I don't know if I have any good ones in here. But I also probably have thousands of pictures with no lizards in them.
Gosh, is that because you thought you saw a lizard or like I.
Was about to, like I pressed the button, but as soon as I press the button, it moves or ran away, you know. So like I spend a lot of time going through pictures looking for lizards that aren't there.
But that's what I love about the game is you at first glanced, you're like, there's absolutely no way that there's a lizard in this, and then when you find the lizard, it's such a triumph, and then it makes you appreciate the lizard and how much evolution went into that kind of camouflage. Yeah. Do you feel like hashtag find that lizard has gotten people more stoked about lizards?
Yeah, Like people have told me that it's made them like more interested in lizards and made them think that it's cool, and I'm just like, yes, it's are cool. Yes, it's a cool What.
Is it about kind of the predator prey relationship where they're so hard to spot, but you have to listen for the rustle or you have to see this little flicker of movement. Like are they pray for a lot of animal m Yeah.
Yeah, they pray for pretty much everything bigger than them, even like other lizards, like lizards will eat lizards, snakes will eat lizards, small mammals will eat lizards, large mammals will eat lizards. You're eating the lizards. Everything eats lizards, so they have to play for the long game.
They're kind of the sandwich of the natural world like us. You know, everyone's like, you take a lizard.
Yeah, sure. My undergrad advisor calls baby lizards ecological popcorn because everybody just snaps them up, just you know, a handful lot of time.
Now, where are lizards having their babies, because I'm picturing the desert and or like rocky ground and are they having clutches nests?
So it depends on species. Okay, so some lizards are live bears, so they'll just you know, pick a spot and pop them out. And then other lizards they lay eggs and so then they're well, the vast majority of lizards lay eggs, but some of them give life birth.
But so they'll squappers frigate us. The strip plateau lizards will wait until like it rains and when the ground is nice and soft, and they'll go out and they'll dig, and then they'll bury their eggs and cover them up and then U sometimes when you're walking along the trail and you see all these like scratch marks, it's because something came by and ate the eggs. They dug them up.
Oh no, that's like ecological jelly beans. I know it's going to depend on the species. But do some lizards have like two eggs and some are just like, oh, I got like fifty babies in here.
I can only really speak for the ones that I study, and like a lot of times they're popping out a lot of them. Yeah, because they have to survive the numbers game. Mm hmm.
Let's stalk big lizards who can regulate temperature more slowly because of their massed surface area ratio. And for more on that, get all into body heat fun facts with a null researcher and thermophysiologist, doctor Shane Campbell Staton in the previous Thermopysiology episode, He's amazing, stupidest question. Alligators? They are lizards? No, no, thank you for telling me that. I just realized. I was like, how big does a lizard get? Is an alley? Why isn't an alligator a lizard?
I'm sorry, jo? Is it komodo dragon? Maybe the biggest is a kmodo dragon elizard?
They are the biggest. Yeah, they are lizards.
And when you see those those videos of them, like slow motion eating a deer.
You're like, what is life?
Komodo Dragons by the Bye hail from the Indonesian islands and can get up to ten feet long and weigh one hundred and fifty pounds. And we'll touch on them a little later. But I don't mean that literally because there were none in my backyard, And no, thank you. I don't want to lay any hands on any one
of those. No way, no how. Side note, I just looked it up and there is a place in Jakarta where, according to trip Advisor user Goldie six from Ohio quote the Komodo Dragon building was gorgeous and for a little extra you can touch a live, well fed Komodo dragon for the thrill of a lifetime. GOLDI sis here from America.
Isn't life here thrillingly scary enough? Anyway? We're going to get to your Patreon questions, but before that, a few words about sponsors I like who make it possible each week to donate to a cause of the ologists choosing, and this week Aaron picked the Doris Duke Conservation Scholars Program or DDCSP, which is a highly selective, two year undergraduate research program focused on preparing the next generation of
diverse environmental conservation professionals and it offers immersive experiential learning opportunities and access to mentorship opportunities. So for more information you can visit Doris Duke Conservation scholars dot org.
Now, some words.
About the sponsors who are making that donation possible. Okay, back to your questions. I have some Patreon questions may I ask you.
Yeah, let's get into it.
Some people submitted several questions themselves, like some people, I have five questions about lizards, and I'm gonna submit them all. Bethany Sispanskey a lot of disease in that.
Just saying wow took me a minute figure.
Out how to say that. Okay, says I've read that western fence lizard blood reduces the prevalence of lime disease and is any research being done to create a vaccine based on this? Have you heard about so?
I have actually recently heard about westernlizards being able to help fight lime disease. I know absolutely nothing about it besides that that is a real and actual thing. Okay.
Side note, When lime infected nymph ticks feed on Western fence lizards, a certain percentage become lime free as adult tics. And this was first discovered in nineteen ninety eight by UC Berkeley entomologist Robert Layton, and a certain protein in these blessed beautiful blue bellied baby's blood kills the lime
spier key bacteria. For more on this, you can see the Acarology and Disease zse Ecology episodes, which are out a few months ago, and by sea I mean here, and in no time you're going to be lovingly screaming at your loved ones to check their crevices, and you should check yours also, So don't need a Western fenciler. Let them go out and do their work exactly. Jude Kenny wants to know if a lizard loses its tail,
does it grow back? If so, can this be made to happen in other animals by some kind of genetic engineering in crystal? Mendoza says, this question, please ask this one. So who else wanted to know about lizard tales? Like all of you, because it's a good question. But by all of you, I mean specifically Andreas, Ari, Richard Gents, lizard lover and first time question asker, Jennifer Alvarez, James Irvine, B. Wilson, Shannon Snyman, Carolina, and Peter Dupuy Junior.
So what is it about the tail?
It's like, oh, okay, I'll make another one.
I do not know what exact mechanisms that like tell the lizard's body to start regenerating a tail, but they totally can. The idea is that they have vertebrae along the tail and at certain sections it will just break and so that way it just it just pops off and so that the tail will still be moving and hopefully it will distract whatever predator has grabbed the lizard
and then that the lizard itself can run away. And I have no idea if people are looking into like using it for other things like for people or whatnot, but I would assume that someone at some point has actually looked into this.
I wonder if you could just crisper yourself a tail, You're like, you know what I'd like, I'd like to just grow a tail today is Danielle Rivera wants to know why are parthenogenic lizards so cool? Parentheses? They are so cool? So wants to know they I guess can they just make more lizards without a mate?
Yes? You know, sometimes when you don't meet men, it's just it's just the cool thing.
You know.
Sometimes you want things done and you want it done your way, and that means that nobody else is involved, but you.
Maybe their career lizards. Yeah, like, I'm not gonna wait around.
Are they clones or are they a mash up? They're clones?
They are? Yeah, my gosh. I wonder if they're all named like Sharon, Shana Shara. I knew someone whose family was all named like Cheryl and Shannon Shana, Like just name them all after you.
You're like, see, yah, that's cool. Does that happen when.
Maybe there aren't resources or there aren't males, or does that just happen because like time's right now is good?
So I was looking this up for some whiptail species, especially the ones that you can find, and so they're in Arizona. And it happens when one closely related species mates with another closely related species and then the babies they produce ends up being parthenogenic.
I started reading some research papers on this, but I want to give hardcore props to the Wikipedia page titled parthenogenesis in Squamata, which sounds like actual gibberish verbal coals law, but once you know, parthen genesis means literally virgin birth aka all the single ladies, and squamata means snakes and lizards. Squata means scale and Latin, so one species of snake, but fifty species of lizard roughly undergo obligate parthenogenesis, and that means that's the only.
Way they do it.
That's how they reproduce, and then there's an unknown number that mostly do it when there just aren't dudes around, And that's called facultative parthenogenesis. I think that is how you say it. Also, apparently busting out children solo can benefit reptiles. If they say wash ashore on an island,
they find themselves dudeless. And while the whiptail lizards are all clones of their mothers and no males even exist, other virgin lizard birth can happen as full clones of the mother or have clones if she mixes up her own DNA into different alleles. But what if they are of the clone variety.
Once they have the cloning ability, it's parthenogenic, you know. Party a part of the party. Yeah, just all the guests look identical, right, I would like to attend that lizardly clone party and just be a gawking wallflower. Speaking of clinging to walls, this next one about magic lizard feet was also asked by Sarah clips.
Patrick McNeely wants to know how do lizards stick and climb on vertical surfaces so easily when they are relatively large? So I think these are some vanderwall forces, right, How are they climbing things?
Well, some lizards, you know, if they have their claws, they can just you know, get up there with their class.
But then with things like geckos, but they have like these little anybody things that allow them to like grip on you know, the little bitty molecules, like we feel like the solid wall, whereas they have like, oh, there's like these little dents on this solid wall, and I can grip on them because I have all these little I don't know exactly what they are, but I have all these little things on the pads.
That So that's how those intermolecular forces are working. That's vannerwal.
Oh that's cool.
I never understood that before. So I did a little digging, and apparently gecko's feet are covered in fine hairs called seti, and then each of those is freighted at the end like an old rope, giving their feets billions of little
bristles called spatulai. So gecko's feet are just a fuzz factory, and the Vanderwall's forces a kind of physical bond via electrostatic attraction between those hairs and the little contours, and the wall keeps them looking glued to it when the surface is super slick or those hairs get covered is when their wall walking starts to Weanhe and I read that a single gecko crawling on a ceiling could support ninety pounds of weight, and one biologist who studied how
the precise angles of those hairs help the geckos switch the forces on and off. Someone named Keller Autumn is quoted as saying geckos are vastly over engineered. They're overqualified for their wall walking, they're too good at it. And somewhere there's a chameleon raising its icones like a bitch and muttering yeah, yeah, I guess an invisibility cloak isn't enough anymore. Also, I fear a dystopia where robots can climb walls and disappear into their surroundings and flick a wet,
sticky muscle thirty feet to catch things. So for now, just make like a happy witch. Appreciate that you were born at cricket. Can you imagine that would suck? This is a good question. Mark Turner asked, what's the purpose of the forked tongue?
So it is sensory again back to surface area. But it's like if you have more space to have more of those things to collect scent chemicals on your tongue, and then you can bring it back up to like there's a little thing right here in the face where they can put the tongue and then it analyzes like the chemicals and lets them know things about the environment. There's a whole name for it, and I learned it in class, and I just don't remember. I'm sorry, doctor Korpowski.
You definitely explained it to me, but I remember what you were talking about. This is what asides are for.
So this organ is called a vomaro nasal organ or a Jacobsons organ, which sounds less like vomiting and is easier to pronounce. A Jacobsen's organ is there for lizards to jam their air samplings into the roof of their mouth so that they can figure out what's in the air. Don't you wish you had a vomaro nasal organ. Don't worry, we do. Scientists just think it's hanging out and we don't really use it. But elephants use theirs, and so do a bunch of other animals. But we don't care
about those other animals. We care about lizards. So It's kind of like putting a broom out there. Like the more bristles you have, the more information you can collect. Oh that's cool, Christina Weaver. Want you know what makes it komodo dragon's bite so terrible?
They have a big head with a whole lot of sharp teeth, and then they also have venom glands and they will inject you with venom and it's nasty stuff.
Really, Yeah, what is that? Is that to kind of paralyze prey or to stone it.
After a while you will start to get paralyzed, but uh, it basically starts breaking down your body from the inside.
Oh my god, Yeah, that's effective. What are those big old drooly things that they've got? Is that drool or do they have sensory organs? You know sometimes you watch like a Komodo dragon in slow motion and it's.
Just like stuff coming down like dingle dangles. Yeah, that's true. Nice. Oh that drool is it's stink over whitey, I would assume. So hopefully one day I'll get close enough to find out, you know, like close enough whereas like a cool thing, but not close enough where they're gonna eat my face. Maybe a sleepy one a sleeping dragon.
Yeah, I mean compared to fire breathing dragon venom and drool, isn't that bad?
Yeah?
You know, quick aside on komodo dragon drool. So for decades it was thought that the bacteria in their mouths acted as a venom and that was what was killing their prey, before researchers realized, oh no, it's just actual venom they have. They even went so far as to swab and culture komodo dragon mouths and found out that they're relatively clean for an animal that eats a bunch
of rotting meat. So their teeth rip apart prey and then their venom toxins lower the prey's blood pressure and prevent clotting so that their victims bleed out, and then they eat their corpses. Now, water buffaloes, when injured, though, they'll go hide and usually in a pool of stagnant water. So why water buffaloes get such terrible infections from a
komodo dragon bite. Well, an expert in this Brian Fry and Queensland explained thusly, it's the same as if you dumped a whole bunch of cow dung in your pool during the peak heat of summer shaved your legs with a very old razor and then went and stood in the water for a day, says Fry, you'd end up
with some very tasty infections. This just makes me want to hang out with more lizard researchers, and I would also like to hang out with YouTube uploaders Team Hazard Rides again, who filmed a bunch of male Komodo dragons mercilessly slapping each other in the face with their huge tails.
Each lizard is really.
Like it had just had a skinny margarita tossed in its face on a yacht. But please enjoy their wonderful, delicate moment in Dad punnery.
Oh sorry, whoa knockdown dragon down fight? He knockdown dragon fight? Is that what you were going for?
Christopher Rujeou wants to know deadliest lizard.
I guess as far as venom and stuff goes like komodo dragons. But it then is also like either the Asian monitor or the now Monitor is between one of those two who are like the most aggressive. I think that those are the ones where they've seen the most one of those two that they've seen the most deaths with, And that's just like people getting, you know, too close and harassing a lot, like, leave the lizard alone? What do they want?
Do they want a selfie with a lizard?
Maybe?
Can you eat those big lizards?
I mean, I'm sure you can eat just about everything, well that you really wanted to. I would. I wouldn't I personally, I mean, you know, well you actually if I was stuck in stranded somewhere, I might eat a lizard. Yeah, if it's between me and the lizard, I love you, but I'm.
Sorry if you're naked and afraid enough, like anyone will eat a lizard. Charlotte Rigue wants to know why do lizards insist on having babies in my ivy plants? Are they going to eat my plants?
Probably not. It's probably just a safe space for them where they're just like, hmmm, I can get around here, and then I can hide from stuff, and like you might have some little aphids or something that fits some baby lizard's mouths, and they're just like, this is the perfect place I have my babies. They can hide and they have food.
So Charlotte, just you should be proud that you're such a good host. Yeah, you know, pretty much make yourself at home in my ivy just I left some aphids out in case you and the kids are hungry. James Irvine says, so many questions, many o's, nine o's. Is it painful when they drop a tail?
I don't know if it's painful, like the way that we think about pain. I mean, I couldn't even imagine what that would feel like if I had the ability to just like let one of my limbs go, like you know, I would feel like it probably would be sore, but I feel like it wouldn't be a whole lot of pain. If it's like one of those things where it's like, this is what it's supposed to do.
Right, you know what I mean? Like, if you've evolved the ability to drop tail, chances are you've also evolved not a whole lot of really raw bir ndings there.
Maybe exactly one of the main points of it is to escape predators and survive. Then it doesn't make that much sense to drop the tail, and then to have that process costs so much trauma that you know it impacts your survival later on. Of course, it's going to be negatively impacted by having to heal it, regrow it, and then not have like as strong as a tail
as it did before. But at the same time, it's just like it should be not painful, so painful that you can't keep on living as a lizard who's dropped his tail.
Good point. Side note, I did some digging and yes, all experts seem to agree that it doesn't hurt. But can you imagine if you got in a fight with someone and as a distraction, you just dropped your butt at their feet and then ran and it didn't even hurt. Another reason why lizards to serve you stopping and physically saluting them when you see them, like me with a migraine fight anyone. And also, James, everyone wants to know
what's with the whole eye blood shooting. Can we talk about horned lizards?
But my undergrad advisor, George Menendorsh was one of the people who like did the experiments with them and like grow it that up. And so it's basically they're bursting an eye vessel, a blood vessel in their eye to like shoot the blood and hopefully, you know, get away.
And that's just to terrify this shit out of whatever trying to eat them.
Yeah, oh my god, might also be like a little nasty, super nasty.
It's so hardcore death metal though, where it's like instad just dropping a tail or, I don't know, like having a fan behind their head that comes out. They just burst their own blood vessels and shoot it at somewhere. That's so respectable. I love that so much. Just google horned lizard shooting blood from its eyes. If you don't believe me, again, Salute the lizards. Jennifer Alvarez wants to know do anoles raise their young or stay in past?
I saw a dad and nol with a much smaller kid and all the other day and wondered.
As far as I know, they don't raise they're young. It might have just been that they were occupying the same space at the same time, which lizards do sometimes. So if it's like a lot of times lizards do get pretty aggressive and territorial, but other times you do might see a couple right next to each other, especially if it's like early in the morning and everybody's just waking up and everybody has to warm up and no one has the energy to fight just yet, and that type of thing.
Where are these lizards sleeping? Are their bunk beds full of lizards, so.
Yes and no, okay, So like during like the regular season, so like you're in the winter, the winter is ending, spring is coming out, and like you have a hybernacula, and in this hybernacula is like hundreds of lizards see and so then like dreams, it starts to get warm, and everybody's like we're coming out and we're spreading out, and like the big you know, dominant lizards are staying in the closest to the hybernacula, and everybody else is having to go further and further away in order to
find their own territories. And then they buy new crevices or something to have their own little houses or whatnot. And then like friend Knowles stuff that live in trees. Then it's just like, well, we got to share this tree and this is this is my spot on the tree, and you better go to your spot on the tree.
And are they are they overwintering? Are they hibernating?
And Knowles, yeah, they do. Do most lizards hybernate? Yes?
Really, so they start to come out like in the spring, then oh my gosh, I.
Love Like in Tucson, their their period is shorter because like it's a shorter period of like really cold weather, so like you'll see them all the way up until like December, and then they'll go away for a while, and then they'll come back out and like the end of February, beginning of March.
Oh, I love that when we're in the middle of holiday nuttiness and we're having warm cocoa and wearing mittens. Just to think of all of these little lizards just snoozing right like in a big hybernacula, just a big ball a lizard, right pretty much see in a couple of months. Brandon Altimos wants to know does parthing genesis make a species more susceptible to pathogens and other diseases due to reduced genetic variability compared to sexual reproduction.
Yes, because if everybody is the same and then the same thing is killing everybody, then no, there's nothing to protect you from.
Yep, you're all going down with the shit. You're like, thanks, Mom, I'm right, and she's like, oh, I know, right, but oh, poor girl. Katie Shabaz wants to know which lizards make the best pets.
I have zero knowledge about the pet trait when it comes to lizards.
I'll ask the internet. I love you all, and I did not want to leave you gazing out of a bus window thinking, but what is the best pet lizard? So I asked the internet and one site said that the leopard get Go is probably the most popular pet reptile in captivity today. They say these small lizards are available in a variety of pleasing colors and patterns, their care requirements are very simple, and they are generally docile. Now where did I get this information about best pet lizards?
You ask, well at bestpetlizard dot com. So I'm gonna reckon they must be either an authority on the matter or they are just very crafty, deceitful gecko lobbyists. But Katie Shavez another patron Sarah Clips did chime in on the question thread and added crested geckos forever with five hard eyed emojis. And I think that lends a certain impassioned authority to her console, which brings us to a semantics Amanda Ringcon wants to know, Hello, what are the
differences between lizards and geckos? Not all succulents are cacti, but all cacti are succulents. Yes, so in this the cacti is the gecko kind of like toads or frogs.
Yeah, I guess you have like different families of lizards. So yeah, that works.
It's all under the lizard umbrella. Rinny Coli asked, I had a green iguana for a while and she laid one clutch of eggs while I had her, but she ate them.
Well, I would off the top of my head. I would just assume that she knows that they weren't flirt to wise, and so it was like, hm, well, if that's energy I put out, I guess there's energy I'm putting back in instead of just letting them sit there and rot.
Thank god, women don't have to say that. Once someone right, you're like, I made it, I'm gonna use it.
And yeah.
Last patron question, Megan McLean says, are there poisonous venomous lizards besides the Komodo dragon?
So there are other venomous lizards. So you have the Mexican beat it lizard, and then you have the Helo monster. The Helo Monster's venomous. Why do the Helo monster have such beady skin?
You know what?
I mean to let you know that it's venomous. Don't this with me. I am a very like interestingly brightly colored thing, and I am so slow moving and I don't want to be bothered. But if you bother me, you can, you can, you can have the smoke. It's all for you if you want it. I'm telling you. You don't what happens with their venom So it doesn't it's not like that bad for people, like for like small mammals and stuff. When they eat it, it's just like, oh,
I guess I'm dying now. But like for people, it's more of like their jaws, because like when they clamp down on you, like that's it you. This is a if it's on your wrist, this is your new watch. So like, don't don't mess with them because they have to clamp down and they won't let go.
How do you get a HeLa monster off of.
You the hospital? Yeah, yes, you do need a professional at that point. And you love HeLa monsters. I want to see one in the wild so badly, it just has not happened. Where do you go to look? So people have been telling me to go to like Beer Canyon and Sabino Canyon, and I've been going and like, I haven't seen anything yet. Although I might have seen a mountain lion, I'm not sure. I might have gotten eat it, almost eaten by it. I'm not one hundred
percent sure. And so like we were walking from the parking lot to the trails and we didn't even make it to an actual trail yet. And then I was just like, hmm, that looks interesting. Hmm are those eyes? And they were like like kind of high up and like they're forward facing, and I was just like, do you see that? And like she was like, nah, the stuff, And so like we just turned around and left. At
that point, we weren't even looking for monsters anymore. We were just like, let's just let's just walk around because she's never done it before. And I was because like, like, I'm the friend who like dragged my friends to go do no experiences.
And what would you do if you saw a heel a monster in the wild?
I probably cry, I'd be so happy, happy tears.
Where do they hang out in the wild?
Under rocks, around rocks, underground From the vast majority of the year, people have been telling me too, is that everybody who's seen them this year has been telling me that they've been seeing them on the roads, like just crossing the road, and really, I never seen it when I'm driving along the road.
Aaron says that between the two summers she spent as an undergrad in Arizona plus three years in grad school, she has wanted to see a HeLa monster for five years.
Five years.
I'm gonna cross my fingers that there's a HeLa out there that you get to spot and you have a moment with it that doesn't involve the hospital.
Same. Yes, you know, have a safe distance with wildlife. It's totally cool to go out looking for it and finding it. But safe distances, y'all like good and now that would be a good and a bad thing. But what is the worst thing.
About your job? What it sucks? Something's gotta suck.
I guess, like, you know, once you're in the field for like four weeks at a time and you still got, you know, another two weeks to go, You're like, Okay, I'm tired of this. Now, I'm ready to be home. Do you travel a lot for field work? So, and the chair Cowls are about two and a half three hours away from Tucson. So like, once I'm out there, I'm out there and I'm not coming back until the season is over.
And when is that season usually, like so it varies for lizard people.
It can be anywhere from like May through September, but I'm going in July.
Yeah, which brings me to another question. Is there such a thing as a shape shifting lizard person?
I wouldn't know, because it changed its shape so that it could, you know, conceal itself from me. But I'm not gonna say no. You never know.
You guys don't ever have to do field work with the Illuminati to see if there's shape shifting lizard aliands like that one.
Oh, I wish that would be cool.
What is the best thing about lizards or your job?
The business thing for me is just being able to like handle these animals without causing them like a whole lot of stress. And then I'm like, oh, I can
see you, I can learn more about you. I also have like the opportunity to take undergrad students out with me through the Doors Duke Program Conservation Scholars Program, and so I get to teach them about lizards and they get to do their own like mini projects and like it's a lot of fun being able to just go out with them and you know, learn together and explore together. That's pretty fun.
Any advice for people who want to be Zerologists.
I would say to, you know, get out there and find a mentor. I think that's what's really been good for me. I've been lucky enough to have two really great mentors, So George for undergrad and Mico Bogan for grad school have both been like phenomenal. And once you have an interest, just finding those people who would really support you, Like I feel like that's key. Like once you have those people who will have your back, then
your set. Of course, you're gonna like run into hardships, but they'll help you, you know, get over those obstacles.
Yeah, that's great. I've heard that before that a lot of people who are really successful really recommend finding a mentor, and a lot of people are too afraid to ask, but yeah, they don't realize that mentors do want to help. Like, you know, I'm sure that you'll you're a mentor to other people already and you will probably continue to be.
Yeah, And I mean also like I get being too afraid to ask, because like I'm definitely one of those people where it's like I had to prepare myself for like talking to new people and meeting new people and like, cause like I have, like you know, that social anxiety. I'm just like, oh, what if I'm weird. I'm walking weird right now. My telling isn't working quite right. There's spit. There's a spit coming down my face home. Oh my goodness, the spit like and so it's like like there's definitely
like a whole lot of practice there. And then you also have to like get over that fear of people telling you know, because like you know, if you ask enough people, somebody's gonna say yes, and hopefully it's one of the people who you actually want. And then you know,
you'll take good opportunities as they come. You don't have to take all opportunities, because you know, not all opportunities are good opportunities or like the right ones for you, but definitely just like not being afraid to go after what you want and then just being like, Okay, this is what I want. These are the things I have to do to get there. This person told me no, but this person over here might say yes. And sometimes when people tell you no, it's not because they don't
like you. Or because they don't believe in you, they might not have time, and so then it's just like Okay, this person said no, Hey, I know you said no, but can you have some other resource? Like can I have some other resources from you? Like do you know somebody who can put me in contact with? Or you know, who should I go talk to next? Or like what
direction should I go in? And like a lot of times people will be like, Okay, well yeah, I said no, but here are these other things I got you for that, And sometimes people are just mean and you just have to write that off.
Like, but that's good life advice for any job. All of that is like such solid life advice you could use if you were a clothing designer or you know, if you any aspiration you have, that is such solid advice that is so good to hear if you just have that kind of resilience, which I think science fosters a lot of resilience because there's a lot of resilience in data and experiments. And now what about parting piece
of advice? How do you find that lizard if you were playing find that lizard any strategies or is it just attentiveness?
So like real life for the game the game the game, turn your brightness all the way up, and then have like a strategy, like like for me, like when I'm like, hmm, I need to find a picture for this game today, and I don't know where this lizard is in it, and if it's in my phone, there's a fifty percent
chance that there's no listener to here. So I tell my brightness all the way up, and then I start at one quarter and I go down, and then I go over a little bit, and then I go back up, and then I go over a little bit and go now and I'm just like scanning the picture and so like I find it, and then sometimes I'm just like, well maybe next time. I love that. Sometimes you have
to find the lizard. I definitely do. Is That's how I know that there's like always a lizard in the photo because I spend a long sometimes I spend a long time looking through these photos to make sure that there's actually one in there.
You're like, I'm not only the master of this, I'm also a player, yes, And where can people find you?
So they can find me on Twitter and Instagram at afro Underscore Harper so a f R O underscore h E R P E R and yeah, per usual.
There will be links in the show notes and also up on my website at Aliward dot com slash ologies, slash Zerology and also get the frick ready for Find that Lizard on Wednesdays. And I just found out that Aaron has a Patreon setup at patreon dot com slash find that Lizard in case we'd like to support these efforts.
You're gonna have a lot of new players. That's so exciting, so I hope you guys like it. Thank you for having me. It's been great. It was so much fun. I was so nervous and no reason to be nervous for the best.
Rologists literally, so ask smart zorologists stupid questions and salute the lizards. Salute the lizards again. More links are up at aliward dot com slash sorology, and we are at ologies on Instagram and on Twitter. Come say hi there, I am at Ali Ward with one L on both ologies. Merch is available at ologiesmirch dot com. Thank you Bonnie Dutch and Shannon Feltis, who hosts the brand new comedy
podcast You are that for helping with merch. You can post your photos and tagmologies merch so we can repost you on Instagram on merch Mondays. And thank you Aaron Talbert and Hannah Liippo who admin the ologies podcast Facebook group full of nice people, And thanks to whoever started the Ology's podcast subreddit to chat about episodes. Thanks to Jarrett Sleeper of the mental health podcast Make Good, Bad
Brain for editing assistance. And also big thanks to the mustachio Chameleon of the podcasting World, host of the percast and see Jurassic Right, Stephen Ray Morris for editing this altogether each week. Could not do it without you. Nick Thorburn wrote and performed the theme music. And if you listen to the end of the episode each week, you
want to tell you a secret. I learned the hard way that if you get something shipped to you in like a big box, you open that outside because sometimes there's a thirsty warehouse cockroach waiting in the box, and I don't want to talk about it ever, ever, ever, ever ever. For my Pacaderman College bobbiology or noo zoology, lithology, technology, meteorology, fatology, anthology, seriology, ethnology.
The lizards are a buck each.
The parrot is five hundred dollars. That's a hell of a good parrot, although I could get five hundred lizards for the same price. Girls like swarms of lizards, right,