In 2018, the authors of the Reptiles of Ecuador book noticed something strange about the lightbulb lizards of the Mindo cloud forest. These lizards were supposedly conspecific, but looked nothing like, the ones in Quito. They were smaller, had a variegated dorsal coloration, and were arboreal, whereas their highland counterparts were unicolored and adapted to the fossorial lifestyle.
Could they be different species?
To test this hypothesis, the team embarked on a mission to find additional lightbulb lizard populations.
At first, the focus was Pichincha province, but soon the quest expanded to the entire country.
Exploring the most remote Andean canyons, the team uncovered lighbtbulb lizards that had never been photographed. Some were so bizarre... they had to be new species!
Today, after five years of fieldwork, long nights at the museum, and preliminary genetic results, the team is close to proving that some of the lighbtulbs found are indeed undiscovered new species in need of urgent conservation.
But your support is needed to complete the last three steps of the mission:
1. Complete the last remaining expeditions in Ecuador by December 2023.
2. Generate DNA sequence data for the last “mystery” populations.
3. Cover the fees to publish the research.