Madagascar lizards aiding biodiversity

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June 11, 2025
3 min read

When Madagascar split from India 88 million years ago, it isolated it from all other landmasses, allowing its wildlife to develop in isolation. This resulted in animals and plants that are unique to the island nation. It turned Madagascar into a biodiversity hotspot unlike anywhere else on the planet.

One aspect of this is a process known as endozoochory, when animals spread seeds in their droppings, helping plant life to spread. We associate this with birds and mammals but lizards have been overlooked as seed dispersers.

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This inspired a team from Japan’s Kyoto University to shine a spotlight on the reptiles. Unlike other seed spreaders, lizards tend to not thrive on fruit or fruit-like plant substances such as nuts or seeds. Less than a tenth of lizard species are known to consume fruits. But that does not mean that they cannot play their part, and some are even known to be the main seed dispersers for certain plant species.

“Lizards are under-appreciated as seed dispersers in many forest ecosystems, but we hypothesized that they may play a more important role across a broader range of regions than previously recognized,” says corresponding author Ryobu Fukuyama.

The team looked at three species in a tropica dry forest in Madagascar, observing their behaviour, analysing droppings, and conducting seed germination tests. The species wereMalagasy Giant Chameleon, Cuvier’s Madagascar Swift, and the Western Girdled Lizard, all of which are omnivores known to eat fruit.

They revealed that they consumed fruit from over 20 plant species, expelling vital seeds. These were different from those spread by the common brown lemur, a primary seed disperser in the forests of the country.

This indicates that lizards may play a more vital role in reforestation and seed dispersal than previously thought.

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