THE ENQUIRER (Cinncinnati, Ohio) 10 August 08 Gotcha! You silly little wall lizard - Scientists study region's Italian imports (Steve Kemme)
Clifton: A tiny wall lizard lies on its back on the rock, basking in the sun like a happy beachcomber.
Someone approaches slowly with a six-foot-long pole that has a tiny noose on the end. He deftly slips the noose around the lizard's body and pulls.
Got 'im!
He photographs him, clips off a tiny piece of his detachable tail for genetic testing and releases him. The lizard darts into the grass.
In the interest of science, that scenario has occurred often in the past year. That's how long Dr. Ken Petren, a biological sciences professor at the University of Cincinnati, and graduate student Ninnia Lescano have been studying these Cincinnati wall lizards, also known as Lazarus lizards.
In 1951, a vacationing Hyde Park boy, George Rau, brought back about 10 of them from Lake Garda in northern Italy. His mother was arts patron Irma Lazarus, and his step-father was Fred Lazarus III, who was president and chairman of the old Shillito's department store.
The young Rau had stuffed the lizards in a sock before boarding the plane for his flight home. He released them in his family's yard, and the lizards made their home in the stacked stone walls. They quickly established colonies in nearby Columbia Tusculum because of its many stone walls.
In the mid-1950s, he brought back more European wall lizards he found at the top of a volcanic mountain on El Vedra, a tiny isle off the coast of Ibiza, an island near Spain.
Over the years, the lizards have spread to many other parts of the city - from the East Side to the West Side, as well as Northern Kentucky. They've even been spotted in the Falls of the Ohio State Park in Clarksville, Ind., across the Ohio River from Louisville, Ky.
Petren and Lescano are trying to find out how far this imported species of wall lizard has spread, where its colonies are located and why it has survived here for so long.
Through genetic testing, researchers can tell if the lizards in different locales are descendants of the handful Rau brought to Cincinnati.
"I've been looking for a student who was interested in studying the lizards," said Petren, who has been investigating invasive lizards in Florida and the Pacific for the last 15 years.
Lescano, a College Hill resident who is specializing in population genetics and molecular ecology, had noticed the lizards whenever she visited Eden Park.
"I thought they were native to Cincinnati," she said.
After finding out they were imported to Cincinnati from Italy, she decided to make them the subject of her master's thesis.
"It's a fascinating story," Lescano said. "They're part of the local lore. I thought it would be kind of cool to look at the science behind them."
Graduate student Tracy Mackey and undergraduate Jeff Olberding are assisting Petren and Lescano in the study.
One of their goals is to find out whether the lizards, as a species, have lost some genetic diversity since being imported to Cincinnati.
When only a few lizards are isolated from the rest of their species, as the Lazarus lizards were, they can lose over time some of the genetic characteristics that aid their long-term survival, Petren said. The study he and Lescano are conducting compares the lizards from Europe with their Cincinnati counterparts, the Lazarus lizards.
"The loss of genetic diversity can have consequences for their ability to adapt to local conditions and to resist diseases," he said.
The lizards, whose life span is estimated to be about two or three years, eat insects and thrive best by living in rocks with southern exposure to the sun.
"It's important for them to be able to survive the dead of winter and also have opportunities to forage for insects early and late in the year when it's getting chilly," Petren said.
One reason the imported lizards have survived for so long in Cincinnati, he said, is the similarity of Cincinnati's climate to that of northern Italy.
Petren said the lizards have spread to so many different parts of this region partly because people enamored with the cute, little creatures caught a few of them and moved them into their neighborhoods.
Petren and Lescano said it's a bad idea to move the lizards into new habitats, especially where they could deprive native lizards of sufficient food sources.
"We still don't know what their ecological impact is," Lescano said.
She said the Lazarus lizards appear to have done no damage in Cincinnati because this area has no native lizards.
During the past year, Petren and Lescano have increased their lizard-catching skills.
The lizards are so small and quick, they're difficult to capture by hand. Their tails are detachable, which helps them escape predators. The tails eventually grow back.
A six-foot-long pole with a noose makes catching them simpler.
"If you're really quiet and have a steady hand, they're really easy to catch," Lescano said. "It's a lot like fishing."
Gotcha! You silly little wall lizard