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James Stroud uses a tiny lasso attached to a fishing pole to catch a lizard. Credit: Day’s Edge Prodslizards on a small island at the Fairchild Tropical Botanic Gardens in Coral Gables, Florida. He measured natural selection in all four lizard species over five consecutive time periods by catching and monitoring the survival of every lizard on the island.
Back in the lab, Stroud measured the lizards’ heads, legs, feet, weight, and even the stickiness of their toes. After assigning an identifying number to each lizard and marking them with a tiny tag under the skin, the team released the lizards to the same branches where they’d found them. They went out in the following days and weeks to catch the rest of them.
Researchers identified the lizards by harmless blacklight tags that they implanted under the skin of their legs. Credit: Day’s Edge Prods “Evolution can and does happen — it’s this ongoing process, but it doesn’t necessarily mean things are constantly changing in the long run,” Stroud said. “Now we know that even if animals appear to be staying the same, evolution is still happening.”