In places without fences, the western fence lizard, Sceloporus occidentalis, lives in trees. It
turns out that the five-inch-long lizard also falls out of trees-a lot. A few years ago William
Schlesinger, an environmental chemist from Duke University, began studying the circulation of
essential nutrients between soil and trees in an oak-studded valley near Carmel, California. He
5 and his two colleagues placed 200 large plastic flowerpots under 40 oak trees to collect falling
leaves and twigs. They soon found they were collecting lizards as well.
The researchers decided to keep track of the lizard-fall by marking the reptiles and recording
their size and sez. In two and a half years, Schlesinger's team recorded 198 fence lizard falls,
some of which were the same lizard's second plunge into a pot. Extending their findings to the
10 ground not covered by flowerpots, the researchers estimate that around 5,000 lizard falls take
place every year on an acre of Carmel woodland. That's about 10 falls per lizard on average. But
some lizards are clumsier than others ; one particularly oafish reptile managed to fall into a
flowerpot 5 times in less than a month. " I don't think anyone knew they fell out of trees at
anywhere near this number, " says Schlesinger. " It certainly makes the natural history of the
15 species more interesting."