Do you know creatures that can drink water with their feet? It is the spiny lizard, a small lizard of the Sauria suborder Agamidae, commonly known as the Moro lizard and the thorn devil lizard. It lives mainly in the central and southern parts of Australia, where the climate is hot and rainfall is low, and even brief rainfall evaporates under the action of high temperatures. Therefore, only the most tenacious beings can survive here, and today our master is a reptile that looks like a thorn, the spiny lizard.
Although the spiny lizard looks like the big boss in the story, it is not very large, about the length of your palm (20cm), and can live to 6 to 20 years.
The spiny lizard is covered with spikes all over its body, which can protect itself well when encountering predators, and this 360° dead angle protection is the point where predators will be worried when they see it. Their food is mainly ants, according to scientists estimates, spiny lizards can eat 600 to 2500 ants per meal, so it is also known as "ant shredder". Their indigestible ant fragments (hard exoskeletons) give spiny lizard droppings a distinctive black sheen.
When they are threatened, the spiny lizard hides its true head between its forefoots, while the "false head" that grows around the neck of the spiny lizard swells and grows larger to deceive predators. What's even more amazing is that the body color of the spiny lizard can be switched between yellow and brown, which helps them to blend perfectly into the vast desert, making it more difficult for predators to find, and adding a sense of life to themselves.
In the arid Australian desert belly, one of the biggest problems faced by all living creatures is water intake. But the spiny lizard can hardly drink water with its mouth! To replenish moisture, their spikes all over the body play a role, and the needle-like skin acts like the needles of a cactus, reducing water loss.
Not only that, but the skin throughout their bodies absorbs and stores moisture. After rain or exposure, as long as the skin touches the water source, the water can be absorbed into the skin and flow all the way to the mouth along the skin of the whole body. Unfinished water can also be stored in the skin in case of emergency.
Seeing here there may be a little cute saying that it has so many thorns, does it mother give birth to it will not hurt? Do you think too much about this? People will lay eggs!
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