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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.
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."
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.
They are harbingers of the end times!!!
Or the harbinger of planes.
Found anywhere else than beside a very busy freight airport, you might be tempted to believe they have been there all along.
But finding Four new species right next to an airport (and as yet, nowhere else), you have to allow for the possibility that they
arrived in cargo.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
Or they're freaks caused by toxic waste.
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.
Or there are a bunch of young boys living nearby.
#DeleteChrome
Found anywhere else than beside a very busy freight airport, you might be tempted to believe they have been there all along. But finding Four new species right next to an airport (and as yet, nowhere else), you have to allow for the possibility that they arrived in cargo.
My GF reports encountering at least four species of legless lizard in that bar next to the airport on the left. She reckons they arrived as passengers though, not in cargo.
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.
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.