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A greasy , arenaceous diet leave a northerly curly - tailedlizardwith a stomach distended by a heavy ball of unpassable poop . The tidy sum was so large that it made up almost 80 % of the animal ’s body weightiness — a record - breaking body - to - poop ratio , accord to a Florida biologist .
As the lounge lizard gulp down insects and other small reptile near a pizza pie parlor in Cocoa Beach , Florida , it also swallow molecule of grease - plume sand . Over clip , the grain stuck together to form a lump that was too dense for the lizard to excrete , suppose Natalie Claunch , the researcher who found the lizard , and a doctorial candidate in the School of Natural Resources and Environment at the University of Florida in Gainesville .
CT scans revealed a dense mass distending the lizard’s abdomen.
And the more that the constipated lizard ate , the bigger the poop mass raise .
by nature , when Live Science ’s editor - in - chief hear about this , she responded : " knock down everything and write . "
Related : Images : Exotic lizards pop out of the ground in Florida
An enormous fecal mass known as a bolus put a halt to nearly all of the lizard’s digestion.
If only the unfortunate lounge lizard had had that option . But by the prison term Claunch found the reptile , it was ineffectual to excrete the tightly - packed , sandy mass . All food had been suck up out of the impenetrable clump in its gut , and the lounge lizard was most out of room to eat anything more ; it was tardily starving to death and was therefore humanely euthanized , Claunch write in the March 2020 government issue of the journalHerpetological Review .
When Claunch picked up the pear - shaped lizard — a female person — she recognized right aside that the mass stretch its belly was n’t a cluster of ready - to - lay egg .
" Eggs feel like magnanimous jelly bean plant , and you may find them separately , " she told Live Science in an email . " This was a semisolid putty - corresponding mint . "
Dissection showed that the lounge lizard ’s internal organs were so squeeze that they had atrophy , particularly its ovaries and liver . The mass was so dense that it was even seeable in computedX - raytomography ( CT ) scan , said Edward Stanley , an associate scientist in the Florida Museum of Natural History ’s Department of Herpetology .
When Stanley performed the scans , he was " a bit nervous " about palm the soft , bloated body " because it was so full , " he told Live Science .
" I was concerned that unless I was careful , I might pop it , " he said .
The lizard weighed about 1 oz. ( 28 grams ) , and the mass alone weighed 0.8 ounces ( 22 grams ) , or about 78.5 % of the lounge lizard ’s total system of weights . This correspond " the largest feces - to - body mass ratio recorded in a living animal , " Claunch reported . To put that into perspective , scientists previously documented aBurmese python(Python bivittatus ) , a specie known for digest enormous meals ( and excreting huge poop ) , that bring on a faecal masses stand for a simple 13 % of the serpent ’s trunk weight , Claunch wrote .
Inside the bolus were the remains of an early meal — the skull of an Anolis carolinensis , which are part of the lizard ’s natural diet , said Stanley .
Northern curly - dock lounge lizard ( Leiocephalus carinatus ) are aboriginal to the Bahamas and other Caribbean islands ; they were introduced in southeastern Florida in the forties , when a Palm Beach occupant released several dozen of the lizard on his prop to combat insect pests , sound out Hank Smith , a professor at Florida Atlantic University and a wildlife life scientist for the Florida Park Service .
In the ten since their release , the rapacious invading lizards have replaced many of the smaller native lizard coinage — some of which have become the curly - tailed lizard ' prey .
" They ’re theT. rexof our piffling ground critters,“Smith distinguish the South Florida Sun - Sentinel in 2006 .
This is n’t the first curly - give chase lounge lizard with pervasive poop problem ; Claunch and her confrere have found three other mortal with fecal quite a little that were 30 % or more of their body weight .
" We had really retrieve a curly - tailed lizard similar to this one the yr prior , near the same location , with a fecal pile nearly 40 % of its total body mass , " Claunch say . However , it ’s indecipherable how long it may take these Amandine Aurore Lucie Dupin - packed masses to gather in a lizard ’s intestine .
" There is no good way to tell because we do n’t have study on ' normal ' digestion in the specie to compare to , yet , " Claunch said .
to begin with release onLive Science .
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