Blood-Squirting Lizards and More Awesome Reptiles and Amphibians

Meet Glyphoglossus molossus, also known appropriately enough as the balloon frog. It’s a burrower, though not much else is known about it other than it’s in trouble. In Southeast Asia, it’s being over-harvested as a source of food, and accordingly the IUCN has labeled it as a near-threatened species. Josh Valcarcel/WIRED

Meet Glyphoglossus molossus, also known appropriately enough as the balloon frog. It’s a burrower, though not much else is known about it other than it’s in trouble. In Southeast Asia, it’s being over-harvested as a source of food, and accordingly the IUCN has labeled it as a near-threatened species.

Josh Valcarcel/WIRED

Here’s my favorite camouflager on Earth, the satanic leaf-tailed gecko. Calling the forests of Madagascar home, this gecko has over millennia evolved to look exactly like a leaf, complete with veins and chunks missing that make it look like material has rotted away. It’s astounding. But if for some reason their ruse fails, they can scare off predators by flashing their tongues and screaming. Not unlike myself. Josh Valcarcel/WIRED

Here’s my favorite camouflager on Earth, the satanic leaf-tailed gecko. Calling the forests of Madagascar home, this gecko has over millennia evolved to look exactly like a leaf, complete with veins and chunks missing that make it look like material has rotted away. It’s astounding. But if for some reason their ruse fails, they can scare off predators by flashing their tongues and screaming. Not unlike myself.

Josh Valcarcel/WIRED

The satanic leaf-tailed gecko's famously sticky feet, which utilize tiny hairs to get a grip. Josh Valcarcel/WIRED

The satanic leaf-tailed gecko's famously sticky feet, which utilize tiny hairs to get a grip.

Josh Valcarcel/WIRED

This isn’t called the harlequin poison frog because it’s funny. Quite the opposite, really. Its loud, bright colors (usually yellow or orange—preserved specimens like this one have their colors leached out over time) are a clear warning that its toxic skin isn’t something you want to put in your mouth. Native peoples in its Colombian habitat famously coat their darts with the frog’s toxins, which will remain effective for up to a year. Josh Valcarcel/WIRED

This isn’t called the harlequin poison frog because it’s funny. Quite the opposite, really. Its loud, bright colors (usually yellow or orange—preserved specimens like this one have their colors leached out over time) are a clear warning that its toxic skin isn’t something you want to put in your mouth. Native peoples in its Colombian habitat famously coat their darts with the frog’s toxins, which will remain effective for up to a year.

Josh Valcarcel/WIRED

It looks an awful lot like the earthworm from James and the Giant Peach, but that’s no worm. It’s actually a legless amphibian known as a caecilian, though much like earthworms it’s a burrower. You can just barely make them out here, but caecilians have needle-like teeth that they use to snag invertebrates and, occasionally, snakes and lizards. Oh, also: The newborns of some species will eat their mother’s extra skin. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Josh Valcarcel/WIRED

It looks an awful lot like the earthworm from James and the Giant Peach, but that’s no worm. It’s actually a legless amphibian known as a caecilian, though much like earthworms it’s a burrower. You can just barely make them out here, but caecilians have needle-like teeth that they use to snag invertebrates and, occasionally, snakes and lizards. Oh, also: The newborns of some species will eat their mother’s extra skin. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Josh Valcarcel/WIRED

A white-lipped pit viper, Trimeresurus albolabris , is normally green but here appears blue (again, preservation does weird things to a specimen’s colors). This venomous species goes after rodents and such, but will occasionally tangle with humans, though bites aren’t typically fatal. “Pit” refers to the heat-sensing pits on their noses, not because they like hanging out in holes. Though maybe they do. Who am I to say. Josh Valcarcel/WIRED

A white-lipped pit viper, Trimeresurus albolabris , is normally green but here appears blue (again, preservation does weird things to a specimen’s colors). This venomous species goes after rodents and such, but will occasionally tangle with humans, though bites aren’t typically fatal. “Pit” refers to the heat-sensing pits on their noses, not because they like hanging out in holes. Though maybe they do. Who am I to say.

Josh Valcarcel/WIRED

At left, a horned lizard from North America, Phrynosoma horridus. At right, the thorny devil, Moloch horridus, from Australia. While both groups have independently evolved similar thorny defenses, a phenomenon known as convergent evolution, some species of horned lizard have an extra defense: They fire blood out of their eyes. Coyotes who have snatched these have been known to drop them after getting a mouthful of blood. Josh Valcarcel/WIRED

At left, a horned lizard from North America, Phrynosoma horridus. At right, the thorny devil, Moloch horridus, from Australia. While both groups have independently evolved similar thorny defenses, a phenomenon known as convergent evolution, some species of horned lizard have an extra defense: They fire blood out of their eyes. Coyotes who have snatched these have been known to drop them after getting a mouthful of blood.

Josh Valcarcel/WIRED

The infamous banded sea krait of Southeast Asia is marvelously adapted to hunting in the ocean, with an expanded lung and a broadened tail that almost looks like a fish’s fin. Their extremely powerful neurotoxic venom shuts down muscles of its favorite prey, eels, immobilizing them and seizing up their breathing. Luckily, they tend to shy away from humans. Unless you question what it’s doing in the ocean. DON’T do that. Josh Valcarcel/WIRED

The infamous banded sea krait of Southeast Asia is marvelously adapted to hunting in the ocean, with an expanded lung and a broadened tail that almost looks like a fish’s fin. Their extremely powerful neurotoxic venom shuts down muscles of its favorite prey, eels, immobilizing them and seizing up their breathing. Luckily, they tend to shy away from humans. Unless you question what it’s doing in the ocean. DON’T do that.

Josh Valcarcel/WIRED

I remember my first newt fondly. I named him Gingrich, because I grew up in the ‘90s and I thought I was clever—so sue me. When he died, I buried him in the backyard, lacking the means to preserve him so I might remember him properly. So when I had the opportunity to tour the thousands upon thousands of preserved reptile and amphibian specimens at the California Academy of Sciences with senior collections manager Jens Vindum it was with a somewhat heavy heart.

About the Series

We spent three days touring through the specimen collections at the glorious California Academy of Sciences. In this five-part series, we’re bringing you the weirdest, rarest, most intriguing creatures that visitors never get to see.

Giant Parrots, Giant Eggs, and an Unlucky Orca

I got over it, though. Because there’s really no describing the feeling an animal nerd like myself gets when set loose in the collections of a famed natural history museum. The smell of flesh soaked in alcohol wasn’t ideal, I must admit, but you get used to that. And I also must admit that these collections aren’t here for my enjoyment.

Preserving critters is an invaluable practice in science, especially when it comes to amphibians. Not only do they serve as excellent physical data for future scientists, but they also help us tackle threats to these species in the wild. For example, researchers gained deep insight into the fungus that’s devastating amphibian populations across the world by studying individuals in the wild and their older counterparts in collections.

The chytrid fungus, as it’s known, has put amphibians in big, big trouble. It’s threatening a staggering one-third of the some 6,000 amphibian species on Earth with extinction. The fungus attacks the amphibian’s skin—which wouldn’t be so much a problem if they used their skin like we do, but they absorb water and nutrients and often air through theirs. On the bright side, though, amphibians in Southeast Asia seem to be able to resist the fungus, perhaps because that’s where the fungus originated. Evolving side by side for millennia, the amphibians may have developed some sort of resistance.

So that’s the upside, and really we’re not here to mourn amphibians. We’re here to celebrate them. So in the gallery above you’ll find some of the most amazing reptiles and amphibians the Academy has to offer, from the satanic leaf-tailed gecko (yes, that’s its real name) to a bizarre legless amphibian known as a caecilian. Sadly, you won’t find Gingrich—my pet newt, not the politician. Though he’s not there either.