Free Republic

Air flows mostly in a one-way loop through the lungs of monitor lizards -- a breathing method shared by birds, alligators and presumably dinosaurs, according to a new University of Utah study. The findings -- published online Dec. 11 in the journal Nature -- raise the possibility this breathing pattern originated 270 million years ago, about 20 million years earlier than previously believed and 100 million years before the first birds. Why remains a mystery. "It appears to be much more common and ancient than anyone thought," says C.G. Farmer, the study's senior author and an associate professor of biology...

CAPE CORAL -- Gregg Klowden and Zach Reffner wage war against lizards. BIG ones. In the battle to rid Southwest Florida of the 7-foot invader known as the Nile monitor, speed is essential. "The lizards can climb a tree like a shot out of hell, swim like a fish and outrun a man," said Klowden, a University of Florida-trained biologist. "They do everything but fly." These über lizards, first spotted in Cape Coral in 1990, have taken to the Florida sun so well that they're thriving. Because the rapacious reptiles are such skilled hunters, biologists worry they will devastate endangered...