Zoologists have discovered that due to climate warming, lizards begin to age before birth.

One of the livebearing lizard species started to show signs of aging until the moment of birth due to global warming. About informs N+1 version.

Unlike animals and birds, cold-blooded animals cannot regulate their body temperature and are critically dependent on climate. Among other things, overheating can cause oxidative stress, which shortens telomeres (the protective patches at the ends of chromosomes) that are considered a sign of aging.

Andrea Dupuy of the French National Center for Scientific Research decided to find out exactly how climate change is affecting living lizards. zooIt lives in the mountains in the south of France. The scientists collected telomere length data from 126 adult females and 231 offspring across nine populations. Adult, one-year-old, and juvenile lizards from declining populations appeared to have shorter telomeres than their relatives from stable and growing populations. The authors also calculated that in the two endangered populations, young telomeres are so short that only seven percent of newborns survive to a year. This is not enough to replenish the population. In stable populations, telomere length in young lizards corresponds to a survival rate of 73 percent. In general, telomere lengths in live lizards newborn from endangered populations are consistent with telomere lengths in adults in bulls and other populations.

Therefore, the scientists suggest that some populations may disappear altogether due to further shortening of telomeres in young lizards. This is what happened to the Mont Carou population, which was most exposed to high temperatures, with the lizards completely dead by 2017.

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