Lizard Project Day 14: That's a wrap...for now. Thanks for following along with us.

All good things must come to an end.  We have finished the field work for this spring season of The Lizard Project.  We have nearly all the adult lizards on our study islands marked.  We found out who survived during this past year and who did not.  In the fall we will return to the islands to capture and mark the baby lizards that will be born this summer.  We will then collect DNA from those babies and find out which individual lizards and which traits were successful in yet another generation of lizards on our islands.  We hope to find answers that will tell us how the environments of the islands are shaping the natural selection and evolution of these populations of lizards.  It is our hope that this will help us to better understand how all life on our planet evolves.  I think that I speak for the entire team when I say that we are already looking forward to the next trip down to the islands.

On our final day in Florida, National Geographic Photographer Vincent J. Musi, photographed our lizards.  He brought a real passion and curiosity to our work and I think it shows in his photos. The Lizard Project team has spent countless hours looking closely at lizards, but I know that we have never seen these animals in quite the same way that we saw them through the lens of Vince's camera.  Even though they are small and often overlooked, these little guys really are beautiful animals and we think that Vince's photos will help people to see that side of them.  This little guy is quite the handsome dude. Don't you think so?

That is one good looking lizard. Photo by Vincent J. Musi