Scientists discover four new lizard species in California

Berkeley - Biologists based in California this week announced the discovery of four new species of legless lizards. Nothing unusual about that, you might think. But the discovery wasn't made thousands of miles away. Quite the contrary.

The scientists from the University of California, Berkeley and California State University didn’t discover new species in the jungles of Java, nor were they amazed in Amazonia. Biologists Theodore Papenfuss, a reptile and amphibian expert, or herpetologist, with UC Berkeley's Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, and James Parham of California State University found four previously unrecognised strains of legless lizards much nearer home. One of the new species was found in a vacant lot in downtown Bakersfield, another among oil derricks in the lower San Joaquin Valley, a third on the margins of the Mojave Desert and, the last, in the most unlikely of habitats, at the end of one of the runways at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX). Commenting on the discovery, which raised the number of known species of Californian legless lizards from a solitary one to a fistful of five, Papenfuss, with the merest hint of understatement, said, “This shows that there is a lot of undocumented biodiversity within California." The herpetologists have named the new snake-like lizards after four renowned UC Berkeley scientists: museum founder Joseph Grinnell, paleontologist Charles Camp, philanthropist and amateur scientist Annie Alexander, and herpetologist Robert C. Stebbins. Robert Stebbins, now aged 98, is the only one of those honored still alive. Parham, who obtained a doctorate from Berkeley and is now curator of paleontology at the John D. Cooper Archaeology and Paleontology Center, put a historical perspective on the discovery. “These are animals that have existed in the San Joaquin Valley, separate from any other species, for millions of years, completely unknown," he said. “If you want to preserve biodiversity, it is the really distinct species like these that you want to preserve." Legless lizards, from the family Pygopodidae, exist across 200 known species worldwide. Their habitat is typically loose soil or desert sand. Millions of years ago, limbs became superfluous for this sub-branch of lizards. An absence of limbs allowed legless lizards to quickly burrow into sand or soil, imitative of some species of snake. Some legless lizards still have flaps of skin which represent their vestigial legs. Although legless lizards can grow up to 8 inches (about 200 millimetres) long, they are rarely spotted by the casual observer. They spend most of their lives underground, surviving on a diet of insects and larvae. In some cases, their range can be very restricted with some legless lizards never venturing further than the size of a dining table during their entire lives. Cosy cardboard lizard condos Most commonly, legless lizards are found when people overturn logs or rocks, a factor which Theodore Papenfuss put to good use in coming up with a novel means of setting up likely ‘habitats’ for legless lizards during the 15 years he and his colleague spent searching for new species in California. Papenfuss and Parham suspected the fairly common California legless lizard (Anniella pulchra), until the latest discovery the only legless lizard in the U.S. West, had at least some relatives. To assist their search, since many sandy desert areas offered little cover for lizards emerging from underground, Papenfuss ‘littered’ various likely areas for spotting lizards with thousands of pieces of cardboard. Over a period of years, Papenfuss returned to check whether lizards were using the cool, moistness beneath the chunks of cardboard to rest or hunt. Sure enough, this led to the discovery of a silver-bellied species near Fellows in the oil fields around Taft. That species was named Anniella alexanderae in honor of Annie Alexander, who endowed the UC Berkeley museum in 1908 and added 20,000 specimens to its collections. Another species was discovered in three isolated canyons on the edge of the Mojave Desert near Walker Pass in the Sierra Nevada. The Mojave species was named Anniella campi after Charles Camp, because of his early-career discovery of the Mt. Lyell salamander in the Sierra. A further purple-bellied species was found in three vacant lots in downtown Bakersfield. Only one of the Bakersfield habitats now remains, as the others have since been bulldozed and developed. The Bakersfield find was named Anniella grinnelli after Joseph Grinnell, who in 1912 first noted habitat destruction around Bakersfield from agriculture and oil drilling. But perhaps the most remarkable discovery was one, if not quite under the noses of Californians, then certainly under the noses of airliners taking off from LAX. Proving that despite scientific advances, there remains a whole world out there awaiting discovery, Papenfuss and Parham found a previously undiscovered yellow bellied cousin of the fairly common California legless lizard (Anniella pulchra), lurking under leaf-litter in protected dunes west of LAX. This fourth new species discovered was named Anniella stebbinsi, because Stebbins grew up and developed an early interest in natural history in the nearby Santa Monica Mountains.

Breviora Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard

Map showing the traditional (inset) distribution of Anniella pulchra and a detail (main) showing the hypothesized distribution of the newly described species of legless lizards in California.

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It has since transpired, with the benefit of genetic profiling, that all the new species of legless lizards, now formally identified, had previously appeared in collections of specimens. But, bell-jar specimens, pickled in alcohol, quickly lose their distinctive pigmentation and appear identical. Apart from genetic profiling, Papenfuss and Parham also used physical means of ID, including belly color, number and arrangement of scales, and number of vertebrae during their researches. While there is currently no danger of Californian legless lizards becoming extinct, significantly the common legless lizard is listed by the state as a species of special concern. Papenfuss and Parham are working with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) to ascertain whether the lizards need protected status. Commented Parham, "These species definitely warrant attention, but we need to do a lot more surveys in California before we can know whether they need higher listing." Full details (PDF) of Papenfuss and Parham’s discovery were published in the journal 'Breviora', a publication of the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard University.