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New Species of Legless Lizard Discovered Near LAX Runway
From an article at Discovery News:
"A bustling airport would hardly seem the place to find a new species of reclusive animal, but a team of California biologists recently found a shy new species of legless lizard living at the end of a runway at Los Angeles International Airport. What’s more, the same team discovered three additional new species of these distinctive, snake-like lizards that are also living in some inhospitable-sounding places for wildlife: at a vacant lot in downtown Bakersfield, among oil derricks in the lower San Joaquin Valley and on the margins of the Mojave desert." Here's some more information in the form of a press release from Cal State Fullerton, home to James Parham, one of the discoverers.
They are harbingers of the end times!!!
Are we sure their legs weren't just run over?
They're called snakes.
And thus it begins.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
He's been hiding behind my zipper for years.
How's it taste?
I remember working pipeline as a lad and watching the Mexicans catch Anoles by the tail with their pliers. They'd fire up an Oxy/Acetelyne torch, char it and eat it like jerky on the spot.
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
Your average observer would probably call it a snake and ignore it.
But its eyelids, jaws and the fact that it can shed its tail in an emergency makes it a lizard, and not a snake.
http://science.howstuffworks.com/zoology/reptiles-amphibians/legless-lizard-vs-snake1.htm
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
Next: Biologists find five legged lizards near nuclear plant.
Didn't they just got their legs run off?
What they describe sounds very much like a slowworm. The article itsself lists the charactistics that differentiate snakes from lizards. It's about more than just limb count.
The Miami airport is a sanctuary for the burrowing owl...they poke their little heads up out of the ground and watch you taxi by.
The open areas adjoining the old Denver airport had a population of raptorial birds that fed on the local jackrabbits and prairie dogs. When the airport moved, the birds moved too -- but not until several years later. Turned out the attraction of the old airport was that the ground critters were deaf from jet noise, and easy to catch. As the next generation of un-deafened animals grew up, the birds moved to easier pickings at the new site.
...it's called a snake.
---- The above post was generated by the Turing Institute. Maybe.
I wonder if they were there BECAUSE the airport was there.
Save wildlife - build more giant complexes of buildings and asphalt .
They're called snakes.
Too right. "I'm sick of these motherfucking legless lizards on this motherfucking plane" just doesn't have the same zing to it.
It gripped her hand gently. 'Regret is for humans,' it said.
On Imperial hwy. 40 years ago were some apartments we called the great whites. at the top of the hill and more affordable ones at the bottom. Behind the big white apts I seen some of those things as a kid. I am almost certain there were icicle plants back then. So you may still find more in that area. There we no more apartments between these and the beach back then.
New species of Lounge Lizard found at Nude! Girls! Nude! near LAX.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
Los Angeles, August 12, 2082
On Tuesday, a public hearing on shutting down the Los Angeles International Airport was again disrupted by conservationists. This is the second public hearing the LAX Airport Authority has held to consider repurposing the airport property into a nature preserve. Decreasing numbers of passengers and reduced tarmac requirements for liftoff for vessels such as the Boeing 998 Starduster have obviated the need for a traditional airport. In an attempt to stop the meeting, several conservationists handcuffed themselves to the podium. With signs and chants, the conservationists expressed their dismay at shutting down the fragile ecosystem of the rare legless lizard found only at LAX. "Every change the [LAX Airport] Authority makes to the airfield threatens to overturn the delicate balance of nature our legless comrades rely on." inveighed Charles Slatun, the group's putative leader. "We protested quite vocally when airlines began installing sound-dampeners on engines landing at the airport. But now, LAX as a nature preserve? This disregard for extant species must stop!" For months conservationists have been seen acting as informal greeters inside LAX as well as offering free taxi rides to the airport in an effort to convince the public that preserving LAX in its current form is in their best interest.
If the researchers would poke around Hollywood, they would find many more.
Who's been giving all that booze to the lizards?
The physicist is Szilard. Leó Szilárd. And legless lizards are known elsewhere, for instance the slow worm and the sheltopusik. No need to coin a new word for them, we know them already :)
Perhaps they just pissed-off God. This suggests that airport waiting-lounges are what happened to Eden, which, IMHO, puts flaming swords to shame ...
That's the best possible thing that could happen for air transport in North America. I've been through airports in Peru, Colombia, Ecuador, Panama, Russia, Italy, and all across North America, and LAX is the worst clusterfuck of an airport that I have ever seen in my life. Leave it to the legless lizards and start over somewhere else, the new airport can't possibly be worse.
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
Considering that it's 85 years old, one of the busiest airports in the world, and had to put up with anti-expansion efforts from locals, it's not that bad. I recommend reading a bit of the history (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angeles_International_Airport#History).
Just another day in Paradise
"There are MotherF***in legless lizards on this MotherF***in plane!"
- I stole your sig.
... share all of the typical traits of lizards with one obvious exception. ( you get three guesses and the first two don't count)
to wit:
Snakes do not have true auditory sense organs. Legless lizards have true ears, as do all lizards.
Snakes do not have eyelids. Legless lizards do, along with all other lizards.
Snakes have a forked tongue, and a special chemo-sensing organ. Only a few lizards do, IIRC legless lizards do not.
Snakes have a short neck and shoulder region, a long torso region and then a short hip and tail region (yes, Virginia, motherfucking snakes have motherfucking shoulders and hips). Legless lizards have proportionally shorter body segments and a very long tail section, similar in proportion to other lizards.
Snakes cannot drop their tail segments, and if severed, the tail will not grow back. Legless lizards, like many of their legged relatives, can voluntarily drop their tails as distraction to evade predators. The tail will grow back.
Snakes don't chew their food, they always swallow it whole. Legless lizards, like most of their relatives, will at least crunch it up a bit.
Snakes have teeth that curve toward the back of the mouth. Legless lizards and most other lizards have sharp ridges on their jaws that act to help cut and crush their prey. Larger lizards have more obvious teeth, but they are straight not curved.
Most snakes have an unhinge-able jaw that allows them to swallow prey that is several times larger than their hinged jaw.
Legless lizards like their kin have a firmly hinged jaw. They can only take prey that can be crushed to fit their jaws, or tear off bite sized chunks.
There are many other more subtle differences. Of course, the DNA evidence also confirms that legless lizards are lizards.... and not weird snakes.