Recent Fox Attacks in Maine May Be Due to New Rabies Strain

How The Giant Megachunk Skink Was A "Heavy Metal" Lizard

In North America, skinks are often tiny, slick and snakelike — with shiny blue tails or bright red heads. Nearly all of them can fit in the palm of your hand. But more than 47,000 years ago, an armored tank of a skink walked the desert lands of Australia.

"It was nicknamed 'megachunk' or 'chunksaurus,'" due to the thickness of its bones, says Kailah Thorn, a paleontologist at the Western Australia Museum who recently described the species for the first time. "It's a pretty heavy metal lizard."

Thorn and her colleagues only just identified the species Tiliqua frangens this June, in a study published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. But the bones of the creatures themselves were discovered long before — then subsequently forgotten.

Read More: 107-Million-Year-Old Winged Reptile Found in Australia

Recent Rediscovery

The Wellington Caves in New South Wales is one of Australia's most storied systems for fossils. Cathedral Cave, part of this system, is where researchers first unearthed Australian megafauna fossils from the largest known marsupials to ever live, the marsupial lion and Diprotodon optatum.

Researchers have also unearthed giant kangaroo fossils in the area, as well as those from the Megalania (the larger extinct cousin of the Komodo dragon) and Australia's giant eagle, Dynatoaetus gaffae.

Among these more famous discoveries, researchers also found other armored bones; they appeared to come from a skink species, but were often thrown into "miscellaneous bone boxes" in the rush and more or less forgotten over time.

When Thorn and her colleagues later began rediscovering pieces from the Western Australian Museum and other repositories, the consensus was still that these bones — because of their range of sizes — likely belonged to two species of armored skinks.

But when Thorn's team began matching bones together, it found that the fossils were likely from just one species. The smaller ones likely belong to skinks that were relatively young at the time of their deaths. Others had the kind of overgrown bones you often see in older individuals — or, in one case, "a big, old, gnarly-toothed guy," Thorn says.

Giant Skinks

Once Thorn and her colleagues gathered enough bones, they found that many fit together quite nicely.

In the end, the team had a heavily armored skink that, as an adult, might be as long as a human arm — exceptionally large — plus a tail, though the fossil evidence hasn't yet revealed if the T. Frangens has a short, knobby tail or a longer tail like most skinks. Many of its armored plates are also equipped with dull spikes.

Its nearest living relative is the shingleback skink, a large individual itself in the skink world. These skinks are unique in appearance, with relatively armored scales and a rounded tail that appears similar to its head.

"It really broadens our ideas of skink body shapes — the sizes they were able to reach and their lifestyle," Thorn says.

Shinglebacks are also unique in the fact that, unlike most reptiles, they give live birth to a baby lizard so large it would be proportionately equal to a human giving birth to a 3-year-old child. T. Frangens was likely no different; indeed, the entire group of skinks gives live birth, though the smallest baby fossils found weren't proportionately so large.

Read More: World's Smallest Dinosaur May Actually Be an Ancient Lizard

What Did Ancient Skinks Eat?

Thorn says that these ancient skinks probably ate tough plant matter, similar to shinglebacks and desert tortoises. They would have fit a similar niche to the latter, as a slow-moving desert herbivore. The fossil evidence hasn't yet revealed what ate them in turn, but Thorn says their spines would likely have dissuaded many predators.

"This animal is just out and proud and not really worrying about it," she says.

It's possible that extremely large Tasmanian devils, which were still present on the Australian mainland around this time, might have gone for them. Giant eagles are another possible predator. Today, Thorn says, birds of prey will sometimes flip shinglebacks over and peel off the relatively softer scales from their bellies to get at flesh.

"The marsupial lion might have had a stab at it," she adds. Any one of these predators might have long ago dragged the skinks into the Wellington Caves, where the fossils were found.

Skink Extinction

The oldest fossils of T. Frangens date to about 1 million years ago, in a part of the Wellington system called the Big Sink. The most recent fossils yet found date to around 47,000 years ago in the same system — a date that matches pretty well with the supposed extinction dates of many of Australia's largest animals.

Species like the marsupial lion, the giant eagle and the Megalania also blinked out of the fossil record around this time. Paleontologists still debate exactly why this happened, as around that time two major things happened in Australia: The climate changed a lot and humans arrived for the first time on the continent.

For Thorn, both factors probably played are role in this mass extinction. "[The skink]'s gone extinct at the same time as the rest of Australia's megafauna," she says. "It affected the whole ecosystem, not just the really big herbivore/carnivore mammals."

Read More: Why Does Australia Have Some of the Deadliest Creatures on Earth?

You Have 20/20 Vision If You Can Spot The Perfectly Camouflaged Lizard In Just 10 Seconds

YOU could have perfect vision if you can spot the camouflaged lizard in this photo.

The challenge is made all the more difficult given you only have 10 seconds to spot the pesky creature - can you do it?

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The lizard is not easily spotted amongst the leavesCredit: TikTok/@mr.Watermeloneeee

The photo appears to show a big green plant, but hidden amongst the bushy leaves is a lizard.

Some have claimed it's too easy, but others have struggled.

Ready to have a go at the difficult optical illusion?

While you search for the lizard, why not check out some of our other fiendishly difficult optical illusions?

You have the eye of a marksman if you can spot the cleverly camouflaged sniper hiding in the undergrowth in this optical illusion.

Or you might just have the eyes of a sniper if you can spot the huge artillery gun expertly camouflaged in this forest.

And test yourself to see if you can spot the hidden assassin in this illustration - but you only have eight seconds.

Try spotting all four women in this optical illusion artwork - the surrealism piece, called Four Women, was created by Shupliak in 2013.

OH MAMA I'm a hot 62-year-old... But trolls say I look like mutton dressed as lamb

FINE LINE People are stunned when I say how old I am, they say I must never use sun cream

TOOTH BE TOLD I'm the catfish queen - trolls say my transformation should be illegal

AISLE SAY I was on a TV show & almost married a 70-year-old…I dumped him on our wedding day

Time's up! Did you spot the lizard in less than ten seconds?

Don't worry, as we've circled the answer below.

Take a look amongst the leaves - do you see the lizard sitting in the centre of the photo?

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Did you find the lizard in time?Credit: TikTok/@mr.Watermeloneeee

Rare Lizard Found In Major US Oil Patch Proposed As Endangered Species

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. -- U.S. Wildlife managers on Friday proposed federal protections for a rare lizard found only in parts of one of the world's most lucrative oil and natural gas basins.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said the dunes sagebrush lizard should be listed as an endangered species due to the ongoing threats of energy development, mining and climate change in southeastern New Mexico and West Texas. The agency will be collecting public comments on the proposed listing through Sept. 1.

Environmentalists have been pushing for protections for the reptile for decades, resulting in petitions and lawsuits. There have also been conservation agreements, but some groups have criticized them for not doing enough to protect the lizard's habitat.

The Center for Biological Diversity sued in 2022, accusing the agency of stalling on issuing a decision. The Fish and Wildlife Service, as part of a court-approved agreement, faced a June 29 deadline for making a determination on whether listing was warranted.

"The dunes sagebrush lizard is marvelously adapted for life in extreme environments but it needs our help to survive the oil and gas industry's destruction," Michael Robinson, with the Center for Biological Diversity, said in a statement. "The Service needs to move quickly to implement these long-overdue protections."

Robinson said the 2.5-inch (6.4-centimeter) long lizard has the second smallest range of any lizard in North America.

Biologists aren't able to say how many lizards might exist because there are so few of them and they're hard to detect, making precise counts very difficult. However, they note there are fewer lizards detected in areas where there are more oil and gas wells or areas where habitat has been disturbed.

Light brown and spiny, the lizard lives in sand dunes and among shinnery oak, where it feeds on insects and spiders and burrows into the sand for protection from extreme temperatures.

Much of the lizard's remaining habitat has been fragmented, preventing the species from finding mates beyond those already living close by, according to biologists.

Oil and gas operators and ranchers in the Permian Basin have strongly opposed listing the reptile as an endangered species, saying doing so could disrupt businesses and add extra costs. They have argued that oil and gas companies already have spent millions of dollars on conservation efforts, including through voluntary agreements reached with wildlife managers.

Environmentalists first petitioned for the lizard's protection in 2002, resulting in a 2010 finding by federal officials that the species warranted protection. That prompted an outcry from some members of Congress and communities in both states that rely on oil and gas development for jobs and tax revenue.

Several GOP congressional members sent a letter to officials in the Obama administration asking to delay a final decision.

In 2012, federal officials decided not to bestow protections on the reptile. Then-U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said at the time that the much-anticipated decision over the lizard was based on the "best available science" and because of voluntary conservation agreements in place in New Mexico and Texas.

In New Mexico and Texas, federal officials said around 100 ranchers and 100 oil and gas companies have enrolled in voluntary conservation agreements. The enrollments cover nearly 85% of the lizard's range within New Mexico.

The Fish and Wildlife Service said Friday that the current determination that a listing was warranted came after "a rigorous review of the best available scientific and commercial information."

The agency also said it would be prudent to set aside habitat for the lizard but did not comment further.

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