Washington — A group of lizards inhabiting the island of New Guinea boasts one of the most exotic traits of any animal: green blood. And scientists have been trying hard to figure out what benefit this characteristic — caused by high levels of an ordinarily toxic green bile pigment — may give them. But these lizards are beginning to give up some of their secrets, including their evolutionary history. Researchers said on Wednesday that a DNA study resolved their family tree, finding that green-bloodedness evolved four different times among lizards called skinks on New Guinea. "Our key finding was that green-blooded lizards are not each other’s closest relatives, and they all likely evolved from an ancestor that had red blood. This means that green blood likely emerged independently in different lizards, suggesting that green blood has beneficial properties," said evolutionary biologist Zachary Rodriguez of Louisiana State University’s (LSU) Museum of Natural Science. The high blood c...
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