News Life

A new lizard parasite is the first known to move from mom to baby

The worm turns up in the mom’s ovaries and the embryo’s braincase of a common wall lizard

Podarcis muralis

A common wall lizard (Podarcis muralis), like this one captured in the wild, can harbor parasites that move across generations, from mother to baby lizards, researchers have found.

N. Feiner/Lund University

By Pratik Pawar

For Nathalie Feiner, it was just another day in the lab. As part of her work on understanding how the common wall lizard is adapting to a changing climate, the evolutionary biologist was observing one of its eggs under a microscope when she caught a strange sight.