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Thorny Devil: The Spike-covered Lizard That Sucks Water From Sand Through Its Skin
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Credit: Roberto Dani / 500px via Getty Images
Name: Thorny devil (Moloch horridus)
Where it lives: Australia
What it eats: Ants
Why it's awesome: Thorny devils are native to Australia and live in the country's arid scrubland and interior desert. These small lizards grow to 8 inches (20 centimeters) long and have evolved an impressive set of defenses, including an appendage on the back of the necks that acts as a "'false head."
When threatened, the lizards tuck their real head down between their front legs, leaving the fake head exposed while protecting the real head.
These lizards' defenses don't stop there. Their bodies are covered in spikes, which are the size of rose thorns and are thought to deter predators by making the lizards difficult to capture, bite and swallow.
Thorny devils can also inflate their chests to make themselves look larger when faced with a threat. When they're out in the open — either looking for food or mates — they also have a slow and jerky walk, which is thought to confuse predators. This is because moving slowly and intermittently may help the lizards from activating a predator's chase-and-attack response, which can happen when they spot quick-fleeing prey.
Devils are well-adapted to their hot, harsh environment. In extreme temperatures, they bury themselves in sand to protect themselves from the sun. They then use channels on their skin, located between their scales, to draw moisture from damp sand and transport it to their mouths like a straw.
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They can also change color to help them regulate their body temperature and metabolism. In the cooler mornings, the lizards are a drab brown, becoming a lighter yellow as the temperature rises and they become more active. The lighter coloring likely helps reflect the sun and prevents them from overheating. However, they can also change color quickly in order to camouflage themselves.
Thorny devils are named after a human sacrifice god. Their scientific name, Moloch horridus, was inspired by John Milton's poem "Paradise Lost," which references the Canaanite god Moloch — a bloodthirsty figure that requires child sacrifices. The Latin word horridus means rough, dreadful, wild or frightful. According to research, a thorny devil was first exhibited in London by naturalist and businessman John Gould in 1840, but it was given its scientific name by zoologist John Gray in 1841, who allegedly had Milton's epic poem in mind at the time.
In reality, though, thorny devils are harmless — unless you're a predator or an ant. They can consume thousands of the insects a day, using their sticky tongues and hard teeth to capture ants.
Thorny Devils Are Older Than Australia's Deserts, Scientists Hope The Lizard's Genetics Can Tell Us Why - ABC News - ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
In the case of what came first, the thorny devil or the desert, scientists believe the former is the answer.
Key points:But this only brings more questions about the unique Australian lizard.
For instance, how can an animal that has evolved to be a desert specialist — it stays hydrated by its skin drawing up moisture from the ground — pre-date its environment?
Evolutionary biologist Ian Brennan is based at London's Natural History Museum.
Tens of millions of years ago, the thorny devil broke off from its closest relative, the tree-dwelling chameleon dragon of Australia's Top End, Dr Brennan said.
The thorny devil is somewhere between 10 and 20 million years old, he says.
The thorny devil changes colour to help moderate its temperature. (Supplied: Ian Brennan)
"They're older than the Australian deserts, which may have ebbed and flowed in size over the past 20 million years or so,"
Dr Brennan said."[They] have only really come into the habitat that we think of as Australian deserts within the past million or two years."
Dr Brennan believes genetics might be able to provide some insights into the origin of the thorny devil.
"If they followed the expansions of desert, we can find signatures of that in the genetic information," he said.
Formerly based at the Australian National University, Dr Brennan is drawing on genetic data in specimens from across the thorny devil's range, which includes much of inland Western Australia, the Northern Territory and South Australia.
Some devils have more bones than othersTo better understand where the lizard originated from before it spread across the country, Dr Brennan plans to investigate what seems like a split in the species to the north and south of the Murchison River.
He says there's a genetic sample "blackhole" between Perth and Shark Bay, 800 kilometres north in WA's Mid-West.
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"Devils above and below the river have different set-ups of bones in their fingers and toes," he said.
"We want to see if this lines up with genetic splits in the populations of the species.
"Genetics can help us answer this question and identify what we call cryptic species."
It is believed that the thorny devil has more recently evolved to have less finger and toe bones.
But some thorny devils in WA still have more bones than their eastern relatives.
"We have no idea if it's a functional thing, or just kind of a whim of evolution," Dr Brennan said.
"Maybe it has something to do with their lifestyle, maybe it's a freak mutation that wasn't negative. We don't really know.
"Thorny devils are just an amazing, amazing animal. They don't look like any other reptile on Earth — they kind of look like aliens."
Dead devils could help tell the taleTo help fill the knowledge gap in the lizard's evolution, Dr Brennan needs about 20 thorny devil specimens and is calling on citizen scientists to help.
On their travels, if people come across a thorny devil killed in a vehicle strike between Perth and Shark Bay, Dr Brennan has asked for the lizard to be collected.
To help solve a knowledge gap, researchers are seeking thorny devils found between Perth and Shark Bay. (Supplied: Ian Brennan)
He says because of their thick armour, thorny devils remain remarkably intact after being killed by a vehicle.
Dr Brennan has asked travellers to collect only deceased specimens, put them in a container or ziplock bag, and store them in an esky or fridge.
Specimens can then be dropped off at the WA Museum in Perth or Geraldton.
The research is part of the taxonomy and conservation genomics project under the Australian Amphibian and Reptile Genomics Initiative.
A Cutting-edge Appetite Stimulator Was Inspired By The Thorny Devil Lizard
Get the Popular Science daily newsletter💡 Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent every weekday.Your stomach is extremely moody—at any given time, a complex interplay of factors such as hormone production and various neurological signals can leave you feeling hungry, overstuffed, excited, or nauseous. These experiences stem directly from the enteric nervous system (ENS), which controls gastrointestinal tract functions along a path known as the gut-brain axis. The ENS is so complex, in fact, that it is often referred to as your "second brain."
Because of this, there are a number of ways for things to go sideways, resulting in issues such as suppressed appetites and slow digestion. Recently, however, researchers developed a first-of-its-kind treatment to help spur hunger via stimulating hormone levels in the gut—an "electroceutical" ingestible capsule inspired by a "water wicking" reptile.
In a new paper published by a team of scientists at NYU Abu Dhabi working alongside experts at MIT, the team explored a novel way to "significantly and repeatedly" induce the production of ghrelin, a hormone that triggers hunger. To accomplish this, they looked to the Australian thorny devil lizard, whose spiky skin is evolved to transport any water it touches towards the reptile's mouth. Similarly, the research team's ingestible device features a grooved, hydrophilic exterior designed to defer fluids away from the stomach's inner lining. When this occurs, the pill-shaped tool's electrodes come into direct contact with the tissue to produce a tiny current stimulating ghrelin production.
[Related: Doctors need to change the way they treat obesity.]
Dan Azagury, an associate professor and Chief of Minimally Invasive and Bariatric Surgery at Stanford University who was not involved in the study, admired the new device, and said they found the findings "really intriguing."
"I love the creativity of the device, the idea, and how they found a way to get around the fluid constraints," Azagury said via email, but cautioned that "even if that works, the path for this to show clinical efficacy in a disease as complex as obesity, is very, very challenging."
Azagury points towards experts' still relatively poor understanding of gut hormones and the gut-brain axis, which are "more complex than we think, and likely underutilized." As an example, he offered that the "new blockbuster drugs" used to treat obesity are based on gut hormones only discovered in the 1980s, far after doctors had begun performing weight loss surgeries.
Although Azagury estimates there is a "long road ahead" before the device is commercially used to treat diseases, its creators are more optimistic. "It's a relatively simple device," Giovanni Traverso, an associate professor of mechanical engineering at MIT and gastroenterologist at Brigham and Women's Hospital, and the senior author of the study, argued in a statement for MIT. "So we believe it's something that we can get into humans on a relatively quick time scale."
More deals, reviews, and buying guides The PopSci team has tested hundreds of products and spent thousands of hours trying to find the best gear and gadgets you can buy.Andrew Paul is a staff writer for Popular Science.
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