Yesterday we introduced you to four new species of Anniella, or legless lizards, found here in California.

The creatures, previously thought to be categorized under one species known as Anniella pulchra, were described in yesterday’s publication as separate, new species with their own name, range and type locality. Each species was named after a California naturalist that had some association with UC Berkeley’s Museum of Vertebrate Zoology (MVZ), home of co-author Ted Papenfuss; and the University of California Museum of Paleontology (UCMP), where co-author James Parham (now at Cal State Fullerton) was a PhD student. The biographies behind these taxonomic namesakes offer a fascinating glimpse into the history and impact of the museums. We thought we’d reveal their stories here today.

Anniella alexanderae is named after Annie Alexander. According to the MVZ website,

She was a naturalist, an intrepid explorer, and an extraordinary patron at a time when women did not have the right to vote and few had any involvement with the world outside their homes.

In 1908, Alexander donated $1 million in an endowment for the creation of the MVZ. The gray-bellied Anniella alexanderae is found in the southwestern San Joaquin Valley, near the town of Taft.

Alexander hired MVZ’s first director, Joseph Grinnell. The recently named purple-bellied species, Anniella grinnelli, is named after him. Even in the 1930s, Grinnell was concerned about conservation. From MVZ’s website:

As a visionary, he could see that the rich and unique vertebrate fauna of California was under siege from increasing impacts of human population growth and unsustainable land use practices.

Anniella grinnelli was discovered in a vacant lot behind the Home Depot in Bakersfield a few years ago. That lot is now developed. In yesterday’s paper, the authors placed the type locality for this species in a reserve that has been set aside to protect the endangered Bakersfield cactus.

Charles Camp was an undergraduate under Joseph Grinnell at the MVZ and later became director of UCMP, which was also created by Annie Alexander. Anniella campi, a yellow-bellied lizard with a double stripe, is named after Camp. In 1915, at the ripe age of 20, the young Camp discovered a new salamander species in California—“a major discovery because its nearest relative was found in Italy!” exclaims Papenfuss.

Anniella campi has the smallest range of all of the new California legless lizard species, occurring in just a few canyons that drain out of the Sierra Nevada Mountains and into the Mojave Desert. Papenfuss describes it as a relict: “It dispersed long, long ago when there were moister conditions.”

The yellow-bellied Anniella stebbinsi is named after Robert Stebbins, a herpetologist at MVZ, who was Papenfuss’s advisor. Stebbins, now 98 years old, grew up in the Santa Monica Mountains in southern California. It’s fitting, then, that Anniella stebbinsi’s range is the southern-most of the five California species.

Its type locality is at Los Angeles International Airport—no kidding. “The west side of the main runway at LAX,” Papenfuss confirms. “There are big sand dunes between the runway and the ocean, and the sand dunes are protected due to an endangered butterfly that lives there and nowhere else.” That’s good fortune for Anniella stebbinsi, too. “Everything else around that area is urban sprawl.”

Fascinating reptiles deserve fascinating names and homes!

Anniella grinnelli image: Alex Krohn

“You don’t have to go to remote places to find biodiversity,” says UC Berkeley’s Ted Papenfuss. “California has so much biodiversity we’re not even aware of.”

Papenfuss is talking about several new, colorful species of legless lizards that he and California State Fullerton’s Jim Parham describe in a new paper, out today in Breviora, a Harvard publication.

Legless lizards, or Anniella, are “cuter than snakes,” says Parham and also distinctive from the other, better-known legless reptiles. For example, “Anniella have eyelids—snakes don’t,” Parham explains. “Legless lizards, like other lizards, can also lose their tails to escape other predators,” adds Papenfuss. “Snakes unhinge their lower jaws to eat their food whole. Lizards, including Anniella, have to chew their food.”

Parham and Papenfuss published a paper in 2009 about a known California species, Anniella pulchra. Through genetic testing of new specimens and museum collections, including the Academy’s, they determined that there are likely more than just the one species of legless lizard here in California. Today’s paper describes four new species.

Confirming the previous genetic work, the team identified Anniella alexanderae, Anniella campi, Anniella grinnelli and Anniella stebbinsi, each occupying a distinct geographical range. The previously known species—Anniella pulchra—has a yellow belly, and the new species have yellow, silver, or purple bellies. The new species can be further distinguished visually by their number of scales or vertebrae. But, the main difference is determined by DNA, which shows that these species diverged from each other millions of years ago.

As Papenfuss noted above, biodiversity can hide in the most obvious places (such as California), but that doesn’t mean it’s easy to find. The trick with these animals is they live underground. They can often be found under logs or leaf litter where there will be some dampness and insects to eat. But, logs and leaf litter aren’t always present in the sand dunes, deserts and grasslands Anniella prefer.

So Papenfuss invented his own “litter”—literally, says Parham. “He’s essentially littering, with permission.” Papenfuss admits he “dumpster dives” on the UC Berkeley campus looking for cardboard. He uses the flattened pieces as man-made leaf litter in the places he thinks Anniella like to hide and leaves the litter out for months as at time. However, he learned quickly to cover the cardboard with some tarpaper, because cows were eating the uncovered cardboard.

Despite today’s publication, Papenfuss isn’t finished dumpster diving. “This is only the beginning of the story,” Parham says. “We need to further study each species’ distribution. At this point, each species has quite small ranges and if that’s truly the case, more monitoring of their habitat needs to be done. If we lose those small spaces, we’ll lose those species.”

Citing human development such as urbanization, agriculture, and oil/gas exploration as threats to the species, the team realizes they’ll have to work quickly to determine where these species occur and how to protect them and their habitats.

By the way, do the new species’ names sound familiar? Each is named after a famous California naturalist—tomorrow we’ll look at the namesakes and ranges for each new species.

Image: James Parham