Fringe-toed Lizard - Description

Description

These lizards have a brown and tan coloration that helps them to blend in with the sand. In addition, they also have special scales which form a fringe on the sides of their toes. These fringes aid with traction, speed and help the lizard avoid sinking into loose, sandy dunes. They also possess an upper jaw which overlaps the lower, preventing the intrusion of sand particles, and nostrils that can be closed at will. Flaps also close against the ear openings when moving through sand and the upper and lower eyelids have interlocking scales that prevent sand from getting into the eyes.

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