Detecting lizards that can breathe ... under water

This is an amazing finding because before, scientists had never recorded any vertebrate that could do the same thing.

It is not a species of salamander or newt, but a real terrestrial lizard , Anolis oxylophus.

Scientists happen to discover that this lizard species can disappear under water every 15 minutes. At first, they thought that they were really good at holding their breath.

The lizard Anolis oxylophus is given the ability to "breathe" under special water.

However, biologist and filmmaker Neil Losin and Nate Dappen had surprising footage in Costa Rica when the video showed that the lizard Anolis oxylophus was actually . breathing underwater.

The footage shows that this species can store oxygen and then breathe underwater. This action has never been recorded or even seen in previous lizards.

In the footage of the scientists, they observed an "Anolis oxylophus" lizard "settling down" on the riverbed for nearly 10 minutes, not holding its breath, but having a small air bubble expanding and contracting at the top. head.

For greater certainty, this strange action of the Anolis oxylophus lizard needs to be studied further so that scientists can find out exactly what is going on and publish the results in a magazine.

But while researchers are still investigating exactly how this happens, currently, the hypothesis posed by the researchers is that it's similar to how a diver breathes air from an oxygen tank. .

In fact, in nature there are other animals known to behave similarly, such as bell spiders. However, this is the first example recorded on terrestrial backbone doing the same thing.