In places without fences, the western fence lizard, Sceloporus occidentalis, lives in trees.
In 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 nutrient between soil and trees in an oak-studded valley near Carmel, California. He 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.