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Text: Uncle Luo Ying
Edited by Uncle Luo Ying
In nature, animals have their own unique courtship methods, and each animal reproduces differently.
Most animals reproduce in two ways, viviparous and oviparous.
However, scientists have discovered a magical animal that can lay both eggs and calves.
In this regard, some scholars have questioned, is it possible that human beings are witnessing biological evolution?
The scientific name of this amazing species is the three-toed skink, and it is an extremely rare "bisexual" animal.
They live mainly on the east coast of Australia and are similar in appearance to common lizards.
A few years ago, researchers at the University of Sydney raised several three-toed skinks in the lab.
Originally to observe their living Xi, he contributed several biological papers to the academic community.
Unexpectedly, this creature did an incredible thing.
In the beginning, the three-toed skink mated with its companion and reproduced.
It didn't take long for a female three-toed skink to lay three eggs.
Like most lizards, the three-toed skink lays eggs, which are more efficient at reproduction.
However, a few weeks later, the egg-laying three-toed skink gave birth to another live lizard cub.
In order to find out whether the lizard was not only oviparous, the students in the laboratory turned over the nutrient soil, but finally found no fragments of the eggshell that hatched.
This surprised everyone in the lab, as they had never seen anything like this before.
Later, Whittington and other scholars at the University of Sydney wrote in the academic journal Biology Letters, pointing out that this was an extraordinary finding.
In the past, biologists believed that only one or the other could be one of oviparity, viviparity, and that it was impossible to have both modes of production at the same time.
Soon, the journal paper was widely discussed in the academic community.
A large number of scientists have travelled to Australia to study this amazing species.
After careful observation, it was found that most of the bigenetic lizards came from northern New South Wales.
In other parts of Australia, three-toed skinks capable of both oviparity and viviparity have not been found.
In addition, this twin lizard reproduces very quickly.
From spawning to hatching, it only takes one week.
Although three-toed skinks are found in many parts of Australia, they reproduce particularly slowly, taking at least thirty-five days to hatch.
In this way, twin lizards reproduce five times faster than ordinary three-toed skinks.
This has a very great advantage for survival and reproduction, and at the same time it is very much in line with Darwin's theory of species evolution.
Therefore, it has been argued that we humans are witnessing the evolution of the species.
But this statement was quickly questioned and criticized by scientists, after all, there is no conclusive evidence to prove it.
And the reason why the three-toed skink has attracted people's attention is because its appearance is special.
Three-toed skinks, also known as three-toed lizards, can be seen with almost no feet and look like a snake with smooth scales from a distance.
There is a theory that the feet of three-toed skinks are degrading, and in the future their feet may become smaller and smaller, and eventually disappear.
This allows them to adapt to their new environment, and in fact, there are a lot of three-toed skinks that have very small feet.
Their feet are barely supportive, and they even increase their resistance to the ground.
The feet of the three-toed skink are still degrading, and their Xi are moving closer to other snakes.
Judging from this trend, it may completely evolve into a "snake lizard" in the future.
As for whether the three-toed skink will be viviparous or oviparous in the future, we have no way of knowing, and further observation is needed.
Many people have the impression that lizards lay eggs, including snakes.
In fact, scientists have long discovered the existence of a strange viviparous lizard on Earth.
The exception to this is the spiny-tailed rock lizard, which never lays eggs and is only viviparous like mammals.
It is worth mentioning that the spiny-tailed rock lizard is an extremely large family.
It belongs to the viviparous subfamily of the skinkaceae, and there are a total of 29 species known to humans.
They are small in size and have many small protruding spines on their tails, hence the name spiny-tailed rock lizards.
It should be explained here that lizards on Earth are cold-blooded animals, and they do not actively regulate body temperature.
You can only rely on the external environment to change your own temperature, so you need to constantly change the environment.
The crocodile we know is such a cold-blooded animal, and it is common to see crocodiles crawling to the shore in a daze at zoos.
In fact, it is them basking in the sun, using the light and heat in nature to keep warm.
The viviparity of the spiny-tailed rock lizard is similar to that of the three-toed skink, and during the estrus season, the male and female lizards mate with each other.
The mother's embryo is then fertilized, and after the embryo has matured, it is delivered and leaves the mother's body.
According to scientists, viviparous lizards are more likely to adapt to various complex environments.
In addition, the cubs will receive more protection from the big lizard, reducing external threats, so that the baby lizard can survive the growth period more safely.
Many people are curious about how the world's first egg-laying animal came about.
The egg is born by the mother, and the mother hatches from the inside of the eggshell, as if entering a dead cycle.
This classic question has always puzzled mankind, and it is only in modern times that scientists have given an explanation.
Scientists believe that the mother that existed first in the world began to lay eggs later.
As for whether it came first with the chicken or the egg, the British "Daily Mail" explained this.
From an evolutionary point of view, dinosaurs in ancient times began to lay eggs before the first chickens were born.
So there must have been chickens first, and eggs later.
Paleontologists compared a large number of fossilized organisms and found that the ancestors of chickens were most likely reptiles.
Early reptiles were viviparous and did not lay eggs.
And more than 300 million years ago, amniotics began to evolve in the other direction.
Amniotic animals are vertebrates, and they are similar to other animals in that they develop embryos or fetuses in the amniotic membrane, which is the protective membrane inside the egg.
As the earth's ecological environment changes, these amniotic organisms begin to secrete a substance called "OC-17 protein".
This substance is a key component of the crust, and the amniotic membrane slowly hardened during evolution, and eventually, at some point in history, the organisms that gave birth to the crusty embryo appeared.
The natural crust is formed inside the mother's body, which can protect the embryo well and increase the rate of reproduction.
Before that, there were no amniotic animals, and organisms had to reproduce underwater.
It sounds like frogs and salamanders now, and now the scientific community has confirmed that this situation is objective.
Oviparous animals have a great innate advantage, the mother can leave the embryo at any time, and the movement is completely unaffected.
This was a very flexible way of reproduction, which eventually allowed ancient creatures to emerge from the ocean and adapt to the wider terrestrial environment.
Judging from the current scientific data, some lizards are developing towards oviparity.
Others are moving towards embryo production, and perhaps in the distant future, people will see more bibiological species.
In any case, it is more flexible than all previous breeding methods.
Organisms can change the way of reproduction according to different environments to increase the survival rate of offspring.
Resources:
德国之声中文网——Dw.Made for minds.《在线报导先有蜥蜴还是先有蜥蜴蛋?》
Global Network - cnBeta.COM "Scientists Saw the Same Fetal Lizard Can Be Oviparous and Viviparous for the First Time" 2019.04.03
Biology Letters——《生物学快报》杂志期刊第四期
LeadResearch.com, "Oviparous and Viviparous?: This Lizard Allows Us to "See" Evolution" Journal: Molecular Ecology.2020.04.10
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