At a conference on Bahamian natural history, I met Shedd Aquarium’s Dr. Chuck Knapp, who oversees the conservation research program at Shedd and has spent decades researching rock iguanas in The Bahamas. At the time, I had been struggling with the decision of attending medical school. Would I make a difference working in a ‘normal career’, as in a sterile hospital wearing a white lab coat, be any different than working as a field researcher?

For me, Dr. Chuck helped to provide that answer. Without thinking twice, I accepted his invitation to accompany him on a citizen science iguana research exhibition to the Exuma Cays. My experience on that expedition–adjusting to the harsh weather and elements – proved to me that the white lab coat in some hospital was not going to be my career path. I found an unexplainable love for field research and the Exuma Cays Rock Iguana (Cyclura cychlura figgisi), in an experience that I will never forget.

The findings are “a very important contribution in addressing who turtles are related to, as well as the evolutionary origin of the turtle shell,” says Tyler Lyson, a vertebrate paleontologist at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science who was not involved with the study. “These have been two vexing questions for evolutionary biologists for the last 200 years.”

About two dozen or so fossils of the creature have been recovered, all of them from 240-million-year-old rocks deposited as sediment on the floor of a shallow, 5-kilometer-long lake in what is now southern Germany. Most of the remains include only bits of bone and are from individuals of various sizes, says Hans-Dieter Sues, a vertebrate paleontologist at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C. But between the two most complete specimens yet found, he and Rainer Schoch, a paleontologist at the State Museum of Natural History Stuttgart in Germany, have put together a full skeleton and most of a skull.

John Meek, curator: " This is a very rare birth for us here at The Zoo and Mez is doing very well, being carefully nursed by our diligent keepers. Mez currently weighs twelve grams and we expect him to make steady progress."

Black Tree Monitors are at risk due to habitat destruction and the illegal trade in reptiles for pets, so the breeding programme at The Zoo will ensure the conservation of the species.

The Black Tree Monitors at The Zoo originated from Pilsen Zoo in the Czech Republic over five years ago and have very specific humidity conditions to encourage them to lay their eggs. The female Monitor has already laid a further six eggs which are currently under incubation and they should hatch sometime in the next few months.

Owner Stephen Evans, 34 has bred bearded dragon lizards for 17 years and made the discovery this morning after checking a clutch of eggs.

Originally, he thought there were two lizards in one egg but says he was shocked to discover it was actually a conjoined twin.

He told the Liverpool Echo: "Last night I'd checked the incubator, we'd seen two heads and assumed they were twins, which can sometimes happen.

As human and industrial waste from nearby cities increasingly contaminate the famed lake that straddles the border between Bolivian and Peru, the native Aymara people who rely on it for food and income say action must be taken before their livelihoods, like the frogs, die off.

"We used to live off of fishing," said Juan Quispe, a local villager. "But now we have nothing to sustain us." The fish have moved farther and farther from shore.

On a recent Saturday, the 78-year-old Quispe joined a cleanup brigade to remove dead dogs, tires and other refuse from the shore of Cohana Bay where the lake meets the Katari River.

"I've never seen anything like this before," plumber Alisa Scott told ABC affiliate WPLG-TV. "This is the first time I pulled something like that out of a toilet."

Scott says she used her tools to reach far down into the toilet. What she began to pull out was still alive.

"To my surprise, I pulled out that large iguana," Scott said. "At first I thought it was a toy, and then it started moving around."

Iguanas are common in that part of Florida, but they aren't commonly found inside your plumbing.

This hybrid species, the Leaping Lesbian Lizards, also go by the name New Mexico Whiptail Lizard. In fact, the Whiptail is the state’s official reptile. It is one of a number of reptiles that is known to be parthenogenic. This means that this particular species of lizard uses asexual reproduction, so the development and growth of the reptiles embryos occurs without there being any fertilization.

The creation of the Leaping Lesbian Lizards takes place through the hybridization of the western whiptail and the little striped whiptail. Once the hybrid species is formed, they can actually reproduce through parthenogenic reproduction. If a male is born out of the hybridization process, they are actually sterile and seemingly do not live long, but through parthenogenesis the female population is able to reproduce.

Essentially the Leaping Lesbian Lizards, a hybrid species out of New Mexico, are actually a highly evolved reptile species capable of reproduction asexually, as well as through the hybridization process. These reproductive traits seem to be very prevalent across a number of different varieties of whiptail lizards.

Gray’s monitor lizards had long been considered extinct in the wild until some were discovered in 1975 on islands in the Philippines.

The species is considered one of the largest lizards in Asia, as the reptiles can grow to be 6 feet long and 20 pounds. The tree-dwelling, olive-green lizards usually dine on fruit and invertebrates.

The zoo’s reptile and amphibian curator, Ian Recchio, said his staff used their knowledge of other Asian monitor species and Komodo dragons to hatch the Gray’s monitor eggs.