Louisiana University Professor Discovers New Lizard Species

Baton Rouge - Chris Austin (lab), assistant curator of herpetology at LSU's Museum of Natural Science, or LSUMNS, and adjunct professor in biological sciences, recently discovered a new species of lizard while conducting field research in Borneo.

Austin, along with colleague Indraneil Das from the Institute of Biodiversity and Environmental Conservation at the Universiti Malaysia Sarawak, will publish their findings and photos of the new species in the prestigious Journal of Herpetology. The article, which will contain the currently embargoed scientific name of the species, is slated for publication in March 2007.

'We actually found four specimens at once,' said Austin. 'One of the best methods for finding lizards in the rainforest is to look under logs. We found two individuals of the new species under one log and two more under another.' With more than 15 years of fieldwork experience behind him, Austin knew immediately that he had found a new species. After collecting the lizards, he and Das began the difficult work of proving what they already knew.

'Determining that a species is new to science is a long and laborious process,' said Austin. 'Natural history museums and their invaluable collections are critical in that they allow scientists to examine known biodiversity in order to determine a species is new.' He and Das examined specimens from a slew of museums around the world.

Natural history collections, such as the more than 80,000 specimens in the LSUMNS reptile and amphibian collection, are important because taxonomy - the science of describing, naming and classifying organisms - has implications for basic and applied fields of science. 'We can't conserve what we don't know we have. It is imperative that we know what species exist in order to preserve them for future generations,' said Austin.

He used the cutting-edge molecular genetics lab at the LSUMNS to decipher the genetic code of the lizards.

Continued at "Louisiana University Professor Discovers New Lizard Species" [Discovery]
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Chris Austin is author of the journal Nature paper "Lizards took express train to Polynesia"

Abstract (Full Text via this page)

The pattern of human colonization of the islands of the central and eastern Pacific is contentious. Two models have been widely considered: the 'express train to Polynesia' and the 'entangled bank' hypotheses. Here I analyse the mitochondrial DNA sequences of the lizard Lipinia noctua, which lives alongside humans on these Pacific islands, with a view to distinguishing between these two hypotheses. From a phylogenetic analysis of mitochondrial DNA sequence variation, I find that these lizards colonized the central and eastern Pacific as a result of human-mediated dispersal, presumably as stowaways on early Polynesian canoes. The extreme genetic similarity between the different colonies indicates rapid colonization from a single source, which I take as support of the express-train hypothesis.

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