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Name : Earless monitor lounge lizard ( Lanthanotus borneensis )
Where it lives : Borneo , near stream in lowland rainforests
Two earless monitor lizards (Lanthanotus borneensis).
What it eat : earthworm , crabs and fish
Why it ’s awesome : Earless monitor lizard are dragon - same reptilian that are so rare they ’re dubbed the " Holy Grail " of herpetology — the study of reptilian and amphibious vehicle .
The species is the only known phallus of its family , Lanthanotidae , which means researchers have n’t found anything else quite like them animated today . The most recent common ancestor of this lizard is thought to have diverge in theCretaceous period(145 million to 66 million eld ago ) .
Earless admonisher lizards develop up to 1.6 feet ( 50 centimeter ) long , with slender bodies , tiny limb and tails they can grasp things with . Their fountainhead lack external ear , hence the earless supervise lounge lizard moniker , and their depleted palpebra — which they close when underwater — are semitransparent .
Scientists still do n’t know much about these inscrutable lizard , but they consider the animals ' adaptations accommodate a subterranean life style , according to a 2014reportby TRAFFIC , a wildlife organization focused on the trade in wild metal money .
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Earless monitor lizard pass their days tunnel underneath vegetation and rocks on the coin bank of jolty stream , coming out at Nox to find food on land and in the piss , according to a 2013 article published inHerpetological Review . grime joint to their lumpy scale , so when they do add up out , they have camo .
It is thought they use their tails as an anchor , wrap them around stones and roots to avoid being sweep off in floods . They mate in water , with sessions last for hours .
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According toAnimal Diversity Web , earless monitor lounge lizard ' unusual appearance led scientists to think they were a missing link between snakes and lounge lizard , but this was later refuted .
They are endemical to Borneo , where they are threatened by a combination ofdeforestationand the preferent trade , agree to theIUCN Red List of Threatened Species .
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