Lizards Took ‘This Is Fine’ Way Too Literally
When flames erupt on the Iberian Peninsula, reptiles don’t sweat a thing. The mites that suck their blood are far less thrilled.
On the scruffy shrublands of the Iberian Peninsula, where the summers are parched and sweltering, it doesn’t take much for a spark to catch. The wildfires burn hot and fast, stripping the soil of its characteristic brush like a close shave. What’s left behind is withered and black, and the air stays stifling for weeks.
It’s all a bit bleak, but the Algerian sand racer, a burrowing, long-tailed lizard, has struck a tentative truce with the flames. It has , and will hide while the conflagration runs its course. When the fires are extinguished, the reptile reemerges into a world that’s not just scorched but, thanks to the burn, a bit more sanitary to live in.
