Scientists blast lizards with leaf blowers in perfectly legit experiment

A lizard trying to hold on to a stick while being blasted with a leaf blower is actually incredibly scientific, ok?

Because scientists have used this footage to draw some interesting conclusions about how weather events can impact evolution.

It’s a big leap, so let’s start at the beginning.

A bunch of biologists were studying a species of lizard in the Caribbean, winding up just before Hurricanes Irma and Maria tore through the region.

They’d taken a bunch of measurements from lizards and decided to go back about six weeks later to see how the hurricanes impacted the population.

As we learned from a Washington University press release, the team spent two days collecting a little less than 100 lizards from two separate islands and measured them.

What they discovered was that lizards with bigger feet and smaller bodies seemed to have had greater survival rates.

MORE: Doctors find a 5cm splinter in man’s neck months after he was impaled

The surviving lizards had six to nine percent bigger toepads and “significantly longer” front limbs.

Their back limbs, however, were typically shorter.

And their bodies were, in general, on the lighter side.

Their findings were published in science journal Nature this week, but it wasn’t just a list of different measurements.

The researchers also conducted a bunch of tests to see how these particular traits would have proved useful for clinging to safety in a high-wind scenario.

They wanted to see what lizards actually do in a hurricane situation, which hadn’t been documented before.

So they blasted them with leaf blowers to mimic strong gusts, with video demonstrating how lizards maintained their grip.

MORE: Study links cat poo parasite to people starting their own businesses

The lizards almost always swivelled around to the opposite side of the wind and held on for dear life.

And footage, as you can see above, it cartoonishly comical.

“All the lizard needs is an inside out umbrella and the image would be perfect,” study lead author Colin Donihue said.

The lizards were able to hang on until the wind clocked up speeds of 174 kpmh.

But Donihue stressed that no lizard was harmed in the lab test.

“They do go flying in the air, but it is softly into the net and everybody was returned back home,” he said.

And while the tests were entertaining, they did serve a scientific purpose.

Fellow researcher Jonathan Losos said the study raised questions about how weather events impact evolution.

“Do individuals with certain traits survive better than individuals with different traits?” he said. 

“Perhaps the hurricane blew in lizards with bigger toepads and shorter hindlegs from another island.

“Or perhaps the act of clinging to the branches in high winds actually caused their forelegs to get longer.

“We can’t rule these possibilities out.

“Still, hurricane-induced natural selection seems like the best explanation for these findings.”