The reason? They have to stay cool because they're cold-blooded. Apparently too much sun and heat means that they can overheat, and so they have to take it easy. When they're taking it easy, they aren't eating and they aren't reproducing. This means less eggs, and less lizards. Eventually, the most-overheated populations will die out.
Mass Lizard Extinctions Looming; Global Warming Blamed
One in five lizard species predicted to vanish by 2080.
The paper on which this article was based was published in Science, with lead author Barry Sinervo.
As temperatures inch upward, the reptiles rest more and hunt less. As a result, 20 percent of lizard species could go extinct by 2080, a new study says.
The study team calculated extinction risks for more than a thousand lizard species around the globe for their study, to be published in the journal Science tomorrow.
The research was prompted by the discovery that 50 percent or more of the local populations of certain species had gone extinct in parts of Mexico and Europe.
The team suspected global warming was to blame, because the lizard-population crashes had generally occurred in areas with the warmest springs—when lizards reproduce.
Just another facet of the new world of global warming.
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