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Credit: Pixabay / Skitterphoto |
News reports are proclaiming that human actions, in this case the building of a hydroelectric dam in Brazil, are “messing with evolution” because of changes in a species of gecko.To read the rest, click on "Are Humans Driving Rapid Lizard Evolution?"
Here’s what happened: a portion of the Brazilian countryside was flooded for this dam, isolating gecko populations from the mainland. When the larger lizard species that used to inhabit this part of the countryside died off, the geckos dominated. Within a mere 15 years, the geckos had bigger mouths and heads to eat the larger insects the other lizards would otherwise have snapped up. This change in the lizards, which happened independently on all five new islands, is being heralded as an example of “rapid evolution.”