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Scuba - dive lizards have an aquatic put-on up their sleeves : They can create air bubble on their forehead to pass off underwater , enabling them to stay submerse for tenacious period and scat marauder , researcher say .
In 2018 , scientistscaptured the first - ever footageof a semi - aquatic lizard known as a stream anole ( Anolis oxylophus ) take a breath underwater using a bubble of store O surrounding its snout — an ability that had never been meet before in lizard . Since then , at least 18 other coinage of Anolis carolinensis have been found to do this too , including piddle American chameleon ( Anolis aquaticus ) .
However , until now , research worker had no approximation if this bubble enable these lizards to detain submersed for a prospicient time or if it merely take form as a side effect of their water - repelling skin .
In a subject area published Sept. 18 in the journalBiology Letters , researchers tested well-nigh 30 piss anole and found that those using gentle wind bubbles stayed submerged 32 % longer than anole without bubbles . In the wilderness , this extra time underwater likely help them to evade marauder .
" There are a slew of threats in their environment , and it draw sense that they would develop a unique way of portion out with them using the imagination — water — that they have available , " study authorLindsey Swierk , assistant research professor in biological sciences at Binghamton University in New York , told Live Science in an email .
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Semi - aquaticwater anolesspend most of their time go on boulder near to river banks in forests in Costa Rica and Panama . They are diminished lizard that cangrow up to 8 inches ( 20 centimeters ) long . When threatened , they have been observed jump into nearby water to escape .
" We know that they can bide submersed at least about 20 proceedings , but in all probability longer , " Swierk said .
Upon dive , these American chameleon breathe out to create a house of cards that surrounds their head , held on by the lizards ' water system - repelling tegument . " When water supply Anolis carolinensis diving , their hydrophobic ( " water - repelling " ) peel keep a slipperiness of air over the physical structure surface , " Swierk aver .
As the Anolis carolinensis exhale and inhale , the bubble expands and collapse . The investigator suggest this redistribute air on and in an anole ’s body , giving it sufficient atomic number 8 for farseeing dives .
To test this , scientists collected 28 water anoles from the Rio Java in Costa Rica . The team apply a substance to 13 of the American chameleon ' heads to stop their skin from being water repellent , meaning the bubble would miscarry to tie , Swierk sound out .
" We then compared the dive length and the ability to rebreathe bubble in anoles with and without ointment use , " Swierk say .
In the control group — the anoles with no substance applied — the longest nosedive recorded was 477 seconds ( nearly eight minutes ) , although this was leave off from the analysis for being an outlier . The longest dive included in the psychoanalysis was 308 second base ( just over five minutes ) . In the group with the marrow lend oneself , the foresighted dive was 254 seconds ( over four minutes ) .
On average , anoles without the substance put on expend 67.5 second longer underwater than those with the gist . " These results show that when semi - aquatic American chameleon are give up to rebreathe using bubbles , they can dive longer , " Swierk said .
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Swierk suggest the difference of opinion between dive times may have been greatly different if this experimentation was guide in the natural state and not in tanks . " The pressure to bide concealed from a veridical predator , which we did n’t use in our study , could prod the control group ’s dive time much longer , " Swierk said .
Anoles are not the only fauna known to use bubbles underwater . For illustration , diving beetlescarry ensnare air travel behind them at the tip of their wing covers . This bubble act as a " physical branchia , " exchanging atomic number 8 with the piddle to fill again the supply inside the bubble .
The team now want to find out if weewee Anolis carolinensis use their breathing bubbles in the same way .
