Evolution: underwater anole lizards (Evolution)

by David Turell , Tuesday, July 27, 2021, 18:57 (1213 days ago) @ David Turell

A snout full of air:

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/anole-lizards-breathe-underwater-air-bubble-snout

"Some anole lizards have a newfound superpower: They can breathe underwater by trapping air in a bubble on their snouts. What’s more, these reptiles can stay submerged for nearly 20 minutes by rebreathing exhaled air in the bubble, a new study shows.

“'As anyone who has encountered one of these lizards can tell you, they dive underwater when they feel threatened,” says evolutionary biologist Chris Boccia of Queen’s University in Kingston, Canada. But how the lizards stay underwater for so long had been a mystery until now.

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"While underwater, all of the anoles carried a bubble of air around their snouts and appeared to breathe the bubble in and out. But river-based lizards rebreathed more often and stayed submerged longer than their land-based relatives, Boccia, Mahler and colleagues report in the July 12 Current Biology.

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"To stay submerged for long periods, the anoles may slow down their metabolism, reducing the need for oxygen, Boccia suspects. And as oxygen levels in the bubble drop and CO2 levels rise, the bubble may rebalance the levels by shedding CO2 into the water and uptaking dissolved oxygen, he says."

Comment: How the air gets there is sill unknown. We don 't know if this a trick their skin allows that they have discovered or a designed adaptation. But whatever, aquatic adaptation for air=breathing animals requires some magical anatomical changes.