Have you ever seen a dancer in the desert? Look at this little guy walking and lifting a step, I don't know that I thought I was jumping Latin! It's actually a shovel-kissed lizard, but don't laugh at its dancing appearance! This is also for a reason, to blame the ground temperature of the big desert is too hot, it has to take a step and lift its feet, otherwise such a high surface temperature, directly into a charcoal grilled lizard.
The tango dancers in the desert actually have a purpose
Coincidentally, with fast-paced Latin dance, how can there be less romantic tango! No, this little guy covered with thorns in front of you, don't look at it ugly, on tango, that's definitely an expert, just look at this pace, you can reflect that we have professionalism! Take two steps, eh! I take a step back! After taking two steps back, I take one more step! Then this is "tango is tango tango walking, three steps and a pinch, five steps and a look", this is not the sketch line of Teacher Zhao Lirong at the Spring Festival Gala, this is the elegance from the desert gentleman. This gentleman is our protagonist today - the spiny lizard, also known as the Australian demon lizard, although he is ugly, but don't be frightened by his appearance, people can be very gentle!
Speaking of dancing tango in the desert, we have to explain here, people don't do it on purpose, who doesn't have to go on a good road, have to dance? There must be a reason for this, just take this look, look at this thick scale armor, it doesn't look like it's afraid of the ground being hot, is it possible to dance a dance to attract females? In fact, all kinds of speculations are not the correct answers, the reason why people go this way, but to save their lives!
You must know that this is a desert, there is no vegetation around, and there is no place to hide. And the natural enemies who like to treat the spiny lizard as food, are generally birds that fly in the sky, birds, everyone knows, fly high, see far, if you see something crawling on the ground in the sky and far away, this little life is not directly gone. Even if you wind up the spiny lizard, make it accelerate, and run fast, no one will fly fast! Doesn't this give heads to the enemy alive! Therefore, this little guy on the ground just one step back, two steps back step, you can easily fool the birds in the sky, after all, this is the same dance step as the "old disco", slower than the turtle, plus this body looks like dead grass, in the sky so far over, I thought it was a dry rose branch! Who knew there was something crawling underneath.
Only the size of a person's palm, but it is a big stomach king!
Speaking of spiny lizards, it is actually a specialty of Australia, there is no other place, living in the central region of Australia, this side is very special, there is no pasture, but an endless desert, with the name of Australia's "Sahara". Not to mention trees, there is not even a single grass, and it does not rain every day, people have to be dehydrated when they go there, and many creatures are difficult to survive in this desert. And the spiny lizard, this guy covered in armor, there are two very sharp thorns on the head, just like the two knives plugged, look at this momentum no one dares to provoke, majestic look, or don't get too close, no one knows if it will prick you for a lifetime. Don't look small, it's about the size of a human slap, and the longest is only 21 centimeters, making it the smallest lizard in the world.
But also bluffed by its appearance, although it looks hard as a rock, not a good stubble, but don't take people by appearance, people are docile and very friendly to humans. Usually like to eat some ants, of course, not "a little", zoologists have done statistics, the amount of rice of spiny lizards is surprisingly large, how can a meal eat 600 ~ 2500 ants, each thousand eight hundred can not fill the stomach at all. Don't look at the slow crawling, the speed of eating is not vague at all, one minute, it is no problem to destroy 30~45 ants, don't see it eating so fast, in fact, it can not digest the bones of ants from the stomach, so it causes their poop to often glow black, that is, the color of the shell of the ant.
One body, two heads, changing color with the location, the ultimate trick
Eating ants, spiny lizards have a set, but such a rampant guy, natural enemies that are even more numerous. What monitor lizard, snake, bird, are its natural enemies, alas, pitiful, it can eat only ants, but it is used as food everywhere, step by step natural enemy, complain of every step is scared and cautious. It must be impossible to fight, and we can't afford to hide. See this round pimple on the head of the spiny lizard? Compare whether it is about the same size as its head, and it is also round, in fact, this thing is a fake head, which can be said to be a spare head. Because in most cases, when animals kill prey, they will first bite the neck of the prey with their teeth, so that their heads and bodies are separated, which sounds quite cruel. The spiny lizard is smart here, when it encounters the enemy, it shrinks its own head, and then lets the enemy bite its "fake head", so that it can escape.
Of course, the life-saving skills of such an evil sect are not only the spiny lizards, and there is also a relative in the lizard family who looks similar to it, but is far away in the Americas, and the name is the horned lizard. Its self-defense skill is even more outrageous, spraying blood directly from the eyes when encountering enemies, do you believe it? Don't look like the spiny lizard, you can use the sarcoma in the neck as a "fake head", but this skill is also enough to bluff. And this magical switch that can spray blood is hidden in the eyes, there is an eye sinus under the eyes of the horned lizard, usually bulging, it is full of blood, if the horned lizard encounters danger, especially the life-threatening danger, it begins to inhale a lot, let its own sinus expand, after the gas enters the sinus to expand, it is like a balloon full of gas, it will burst to the limit, and at this moment it will spew out a stream of bright red blood, and it can spray to a distance of two meters, who doesn't feel scary when he sees it!
And the life-saving skills of spiny lizards are far more than having a fake head and climbing slowly, like a branch of the rose genus, although it can pretend to be a plant paralyzed on the ground, it is not enough to save life. Therefore, people found a chameleon to worship a master, although the seventy-two changes did not learn, to learn the transformation of the three colors of red, yellow, and brown, after all, the desert, the color itself is monotonous, and the three colors are enough.
Drink water with your feet without your mouth, just stand motionless
Of course, none of these bells and whistles are enough to make it famous, and what really makes people feel incredible is being able to drink water with their feet. Right! That's right, it's drinking water with your feet! The desert area is very dry, not to mention the high temperature of more than 40 degrees all year round, and there are very few real water sources, if you want to survive here, you must not miss any opportunity to replenish. Affected by the temperature difference between day and night, the ultra-high temperature during the day, and the sudden drop in temperature at night, the water vapor in the air will quickly condense and fall on the plants to become dew, and the spiny lizard only needs to stand on these plants to drink these dew. Following its feet, from bottom to top, from the outside to the inside, water penetrates into its body and feeds into its mouth.
The reason why the spiny lizard has such a peculiarity, but also thanks to this ugly skin that everyone says, carefully look at the many irregular grooves on it, water can extend along these grooves to the surface of the body, so that its entire skin will be moist, at this time the jaw of the spiny lizard begins to open and close, and the water absorbed from under the feet can be completely sent into the mouth. This phenomenon is very common in physics, the so-called capillary phenomenon, and the transpiration of plants is a principle. So, if you are in the desert of Australia and you see a spiny lizard standing motionless on the wet ground, with its mouth still closed, don't doubt, it is drinking water!
And the animals that can drink water with their skin are not only spiny lizards, but even a friend we are very familiar with, that is, frogs. Because the frog's skin is very thin, can not retain moisture, it is easy to be evaporated, if it is left for too long, the skin will become very dry, so it stands at the water's edge all year round, let its skin absorb water, keep its whole body moist. The same is true of most amphibians.
So the question is, if this guy stands and drinks water with his skin, what does his tongue do?
In fact, its tongue is that thin and long, very flexible, like frogs, and sticky, so that it can better stick those ants, small insects and so on to the tongue, and help itself eat faster. In order to survive in the arid desert, the tongue and mouth of the spiny lizard have been specialized, and they cannot directly roll their tongues and drink water like most animals, so they can only use capillary action through the skin, and then lead water into their own mouths.
Although the spiny lizard is a small one, but there are many of these small skills, it is precisely because of these special skills that they can create a miracle of life in such a high temperature and dry Australian desert, multiply in the desolation, escape from danger in the hands of natural enemies, do not admit defeat, are not afraid of losing, grow tenaciously along adversity, not only its stubbornness to life, the existence of this creature, but also a miracle in nature, in fact, people are the same, nothing is impossible, no matter how harsh the environment, as long as they do not give up, Always adaptable.