New Self-Cloning Lizard Found in Vietnam Restaurant
Brian Handwerk
Published November 8, 2010
Current Event By: Blaise Sevier
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| Photograph courtesy Lee Grismer |
Have you ever thought of eating a lizard for a snack or dinner? I haven’t but although I have heard it tastes like chicken. L. Lee Grismer is one of the founders of the Leiolepis ngovantrii a self cloning lizard found in many restaurants in Vietnam. As he was passing through this small town in Vietnam he saw a strange sight, people eating a lizard that was unknown to scientists! Crazy to think that some people were eating something that no one knew about till now! Crazy right, but that is not all. As scientists researched more in this topic they found that all the lizards are female! Thus concludes that this new tasty lizard is not only for chomping but also can clone itself! The team of scientists who wanted to know more about this reptile had a hard time finding it… alive. "When we finally got there, this crazy guy had gotten drunk and served them all to his customers," recalled Lee Grismer, who has received funding for other projects from the National Geographic Society's Committee for Research and Exploration. (The Society owns National Geographic News.) Later they searched for the lizard around the restaurants finding 70 wild lizards, all female.
When I read this article I was stunned! These people were eating a lizard that had no records at all with scientists! I am not sure if I would eat something that scientists don’t know about, what about the risks? Nevertheless it is a delectable dish that is dined in Vietnam and so far it hasn’t done any harm. Knock on Wood. I hope that this will continue to be a safe dish for people to eat because eventually I would love to try it! Who knows it could end up to be my favorite dish in the world! Although that this animal does not have a lot of information on it, hopefully in the next few years more information will start popping up about other kinds of animals that weren’t known the world’s eye! I hope that the Vietnamese keep this diverse tradition and conserve it for as long as they can.
Sites Used:
Handwerk, Brian. "New Self Cloning Lizard Found in Vietnam." Daily Nature and Science News and Headlines | National Geographic News. Web. 16 Nov. 2010. <http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/11/101108-new-lizard-virgin-birth-vietnam-science-animals/>.
theats just really freakish! i dunno if id like to try fried lizard at all- and now that we know that scientists dont know anything about them, that they clone themselves and that theyre all female id definitely not want to try fried lizard! shouldnt they link ban eating lizards until we are 100 % sure that they are 100 % safe? we could get some new illness or some super severe form of cancer just from eating lizards!
ReplyDeleteanyway, i think that you added a lot of detail in your article and you really explained yourself well.
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ReplyDeleteWOW! I thought it was weird when I was in Malawi and i saw people eating mouse kebabs. But to eat a lizard without scientists knowing anything about it, i don't know if i could handle that. :)
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed your article it was really well written. Awesome job!