Strange-looking orange lizards are popping up across Florida. Here's how they could upend its ecosystems
Peter's rock agama are darting around neighborhoods this spring, and experts say they're likely to be increasingly more common in coming months.
That's concerning for native populations, including the Reef Gecko. Peter's rock agama may pose a threat to small native insects and reptiles by preying upon native species and out-competing them for resources.
'Peters's rock agama are larger than most geckos in Florida (note we only have one native species of gecko),' Dr. Steve Johnson told WKMG.
'The agama have spiny scales and a somewhat rough appearance, whereas our geckos have small, flat scales and look much smoother. Also, Peters's rock agama are active during the day, but the geckos are active mainly at night,' he noted.
The males are up to a foot long, while the females are less than half that size. Breeding males have an orange or red head, a black or indigo body, and a multicolored tail.
Native to sub-Saharan Africa, Peter's rock agama were first documented in the Sunshine State in 1976, and have been found in more than half of Florida's 67 counties, according to The Palm Beach Post.
They're particularly hard to catch, according to the state's Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. The commission encourages residents to report sightings.
'Eradication of established populations in Florida is likely not feasible,' the agency notes.
In addition to eating insects — such as the grasshoppers and crickets — they also eat their own young. They are allowed to be humanely killed on private property with landowner permission, and year-round without a permit or hunting license on 32 Commission-managed lands in southern Florida.
Although they are confined largely to residential areas, they don't pose a threat to pets or people, although their bite could be painful, according to the University of Florida.
Very little research has been conducted, but it seems unlikely that they have made significant negative impacts on Florida's environment.
'Because they feed on insects and other small invertebrates, they do have the potential to negatively impact imperiled butterflies, especially in south Florida and the Keys. However, this has not been studied,' the university said.
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Miami Herald
12 hours ago
- Miami Herald
Corals keep cooking in climate-heated seas. These crossbreeds may keep hope alive
The first-in-the-world experiment began not with a splash, but with a gasp from a respirator. Neoprene-clad scientists sank to the shallow bottom of Flamingo Reef off Key Biscayne, clutching black milk cartons filled with precious cargo. Inside were a few dozen contraptions that looked like fancy desk toys — round pucks of concrete shielded by a spinning piece of metal resembling the ribs of an umbrella. Underneath the rotating spines were four thumbnail-sized chunks of coral. Two were the usual suspects for South Florida, hunks of elkhorn coral, and two were newcomers, a crossbreed of Florida elkhorns with their Honduran siblings. These 'Flonduran' corals are the first ever corals with parents from different countries to be planted in the wild, according to the University of Miami and Florida's Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, which approved the experiment. It's a revolutionary new strategy to save corals as human-caused climate change cranks up the temperature of oceans worldwide. The shallow, turquoise waters of the Caribbean have been hit particularly hard. A 2023 marine heat wave was devastating to the Florida reef tract and many neighboring island nations. Only about 1 in 5 staghorn corals on five major Keys reefs survived the event, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration found. This pilot project, to share corals throughout the Caribbean and potentially breed new, more resilient varieties that have a chance of surviving the next heat wave, could be a step toward a world where more — but not all — corals survive. And while the scientific tide appears to have turned on the idea of breaking up corals into smaller pieces, growing them rapidly and planting them on reefs, new research suggests that genetically selecting for stronger coral might still give scientists a chance at restoring some reefs. 'We don't have to plant every single coral on the reef. We just have to plant the next generation. That is the goal of restoration, making these systems self-sustaining,' said Andrew Baker, lead scientist on the experiment and a professor at the University of Miami's Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric, and Earth Science. 'We're scattering the seeds. We have to wait for the oaks to grow up.' Baker and his team suited up earlier this month and slipped under the waters of Biscayne Bay to deliver these baby corals to their new home. Twenty feet under, they'll be neighbors with other coral experiments from UM, as well as a forest of colorful soft corals and sponges. They'll live here for at least a year, with regular checkups from an army of researchers, before they'll get yanked back to the surface for a round of stress tests. The big question for these tiny animals: Can they take the heat? From Tela Bay to Biscayne Bay Climate change is warming the whole planet, but the ocean is absorbing most of that heat. That's bad news for creatures that are sensitive to temperature changes, like corals. When waters get too toasty, corals spit out the algae that live within their skeletons, the stuff they rely on for food and protection from the sun's rays. Scientists call the ghostly white coral — starving and sunburning — bleached. If a coral stays bleached for too long, it dies. The oceans are always warming unevenly, with some hot spots turning into coral graveyards and others remaining resilient. That's where Baker and his team got the idea to find the sturdiest survivors and interbreed them with their Florida siblings. Over the last few years, Baker tried to scoop up corals from Mexico, Belize, the Cayman Islands, the Bahamas and even Cuba, where a massive amount of wild corals perished in 2023 when waters reached 95 degrees. He finally found success in Honduras, where waters are 2 degrees warmer than Florida and soupy with pollution from nearby coastal cities. And yet, Baker said, the corals in Tela Bay were 'remarkably resilient.' After a year and a half of permitting delays, Baker and his team managed to successfully airlift a handful of those resilient corals back to Florida. It was a 14-hour journey from sea to lab aquarium, featuring a small plane, a crate of seawater and plenty of bubble wrap. Once safely in the Sunshine State, the Florida Aquarium interbred the Honduras parents with a stock of Florida elkhorns, creating an army of 'Flonduran' children. Scientists call this assisted gene flow. In a commentary published Thursday in the journal Science, a team of leading coral scientists argued it may be the best way to save at least some corals. A reckoning in 2023 In Florida, elkhorn corals in particular are struggling to survive. Only 23 distinct genetic species, out of 153 cataloged before 2023, remain in the wild. The few remaining wild species have all but stopped reproducing in the Keys, scientists say. Some research suggests that, if temperatures continue to rise at the current pace, they could be locally extinct in a decade or two. 'The question is, how do we rescue those corals? They could withstand decades of additional heat stress in other places in the Caribbean,' Baker said. 'If we leave them where they are, they will potentially die off in the next big bleaching event.' Florida approved the outplanting of the new crossbred coral, but it denied an opportunity to outplant another hybrid coral — Florida corals mixed with corals from Curaçao — a few years back. Those offspring are still stored at a research aquarium in Florida. That's because the Honduras corals are genetic siblings to Florida corals, while Curaçao corals are further removed, like cousins once or twice removed. Corals from other locations, like Hawaii, are essentially strangers, scientists say. That leaves an increasingly shrinking pot of corals for Florida to choose from, if this is a strategy the state continues to pursue. While some may look at this strategy of swapping corals around a small region as the whole ocean cooks more like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, Baker said he prefers to see it as buying time. 'We need to buy time for as many species to thrive while we as a society figure out whatever the solution is going to be to climate change,' he said. 'It's an inconvenient truth that while this method can be used to help corals in some parts of the region, it's not a solution for all.' The science backs him up. An increasing amount of research has soured on the once very popular idea of rescuing dying reefs by choosing fast-growing species, breaking them up into tiny fragments and planting those regrown pieces on reefs. 'Coral restoration has been a very hot and sexy topic for years. Because of the growing recognition in the coral reef science community that restoring coral is difficult, the research is losing a little bit of momentum,' said Giovanni Strona, a researcher at the European Commission who has studied tropical reefs since 2008. In a paper published in April, Strona and his team argued that restoration only works under narrow circumstances. Replanting a huge number of genetic copies of one type of coral is like building an entire city with only one-bedroom apartments. It's not enough to attract the diverse, healthy ecosystem needed to survive disease, predators or climate change. 'You need to create a reef that's as diverse as the original one. Of course, having something is better than having nothing,' Strona said. It's also simply not happening fast enough. He compared replanting new corals to reforestation projects happening all around the world; they're not keeping up with the global loss of forests — at all. In total, he found, only a few square meters of reef around the world have been restored in recent years. 'It's not about restoring even three soccer fields. We're really talking about very tiny islands,' he said. However, the newest wave of coral research suggests that genetically selecting for stronger, better corals — including interbreeding via assisted gene flow — could still be a visible solution to keep some reefs in selected areas viable. A paper published last year found that lab-reared corals survived the 2023 Caribbean marine heat wave better than nursery-grown or native corals. But in some places, it may already be too late. 'Elkhorn and staghorn corals in some of the region's warmest areas, off the south coast of Cuba, were exposed to unprecedented heat stress during the 2023 bleaching event and have experienced major losses. It is not clear whether these reefs can recover through immigration of even more thermally tolerant genets from elsewhere because these reefs are among the warmest in the region,' the authors wrote in the Science commentary.
Yahoo
6 days ago
- Yahoo
Mystic Aquarium scientist to lead research expedition to underwater canyons ‘deeper than the Grand Canyon'
Mystic Aquarium 'will lead an interdisciplinary team of scientists on an oceanographic research expedition to study vibrant marine life, biodiversity, and the changing ocean environment within the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument (monument),' aquarium officials said. The scientists 'will study predator-prey interactions, collect and identify gelatinous zooplankton, conduct seabird population surveys, and collect environmental DNA to measure biodiversity,' according to Mystic Aquarium. They will travel on the Research Vessel Connecticut to explore the monument and collect data. 'Dr. Peter Auster, Scientist-in-Residence at Mystic Aquarium and Research Professor Emeritus at the University of Connecticut, will lead the expedition,' according to Mystic Aquarium. 'The team is comprised of scientists and educators representing organizations including Yale University, University of Rhode Island, University of Connecticut, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science.' The monument, a government-established marine protected area, is 'the first and only Marine National Monument off the continental United States,' according to the aquarium. It ' features three underwater canyons deeper than the Grand Canyon' as well as four seamounts, or extinct volcanoes, 'that rise higher than any mountain east of the Rockies.' The environment allows refuge for marine life, according to Mystic Aquarium, which includes 'endangered marine mammals, sea turtles, seabirds, and many species of rare and fragile deep-sea corals, some thousands of years old.' 'The monument is located approximately 130 miles off Cape Cod and spans an area roughly the size of Connecticut,' according to the aquarium. This CT baker uses an ingredient that's growing broadly in popularity. There's a reason she does it. 'The monument is a living laboratory, sitting in an undisturbed, remote location where migrating whales, sea turtles, sea birds and other species representing a large portion of the food web gather to eat, breed, and find shelter,' said Dr. Peter Auster, the expedition's chief scientist and principal investigator. 'As our oceans are rapidly changing, MPAs like the monument allow us to collect essential data to inform conservation strategies.' 'Marine protected areas are one of the most valuable ocean research and conservation tools we have, offering an unmatched opportunity to study how the ocean works in the absence of human disturbance and showcase its rich biodiversity,' said Katie Cubina, Education and Outreach Consultant for Mystic Aquarium. 'There is something in the ocean for everyone, whether it's the protection of endangered marine animals, scientific discoveries, or simply appreciating its intrinsic beauty.' Want to follow along the expedition? Check out 'Mystic Aquarium's Instagram account and tune into a livestream event via YouTube' on thursday, July 24 at 1 p.m. according to the aquarium. Solve the daily Crossword
Hypebeast
18-07-2025
- Hypebeast
'TRON: Ares' Unleashes AI Into the Real World in Trailer Reveal
Summary Disneyhas just unveiled the trailer forTron: Aresgiving fans the first full look at the third chapter in Disney's iconicTRONfranchise — and it's unlike anything we've seen from the series so far. Set to hit theatres on October 10, 2025, this new installment doesn't just return to the digital world. It brings it crashing into ours. Instead of humans entering the Grid like in previous films,Tron: Aresflips the formula. StarringJared Letoas a powerful program named Ares sent from the digital world into the real one. Described as 'biblically strong, lightning fast, supremely intelligent,' Ares is a weaponized AI created by tech mogul Julian Dillinger played byEvan Peters. The trailer frames the conflict as technology versus nature, with Dillinger coldly stating, 'If he's destroyed, I'll just remake him,' highlighting the dangerous ease with which artificial intelligence can be treated as disposable. The trailer wastes no time diving into the chaos. It's a high-stakes collision of digital power and human vulnerability, arriving at a time when conversations around AI feel more real than ever. The cast is stacked. Alongside Leto and Peters, the film starsGreta Lee,Gillian Anderson,Hasan Minhaj,Jodie Turner-Smith,Cameron Monaghan, Arturo Castro, and a returningJeff Bridgesas Kevin Flynn. While Bridges' role seems smaller this time around, his presence ties the past to this new evolution. Visually, it's exactly what fans hoped for — a neon-soaked spectacle that pushes theTRONaesthetic even further. From slick armor to hyper-stylized action, director Joachim Rønning is clearly honoring the franchise's legacy while updating it for 2025's expectations. Following the legendary scores byDaft Punkin their last filmTron: Legacy, the upcoming film tapsNine Inch Nailsfor the soundtrack. The trailer features the debut of their new single, 'As Alive as You Need Me to Be,' setting a gritty, unworldly tone that fits perfectly within theTRONuniverse. The full score arrives September 19, 2025, ahead of the film's release. With a flipped premise, a heavy-hitting cast, and a sound that demands your attention,Tron: Aresis shaping up to be more than a sequel — it's a statement. And if this trailer is anything to go by, we're in for a wild, wired ride. Check out the trailer above.
