Rare lizard fossil preserved in amber - via Herp Digest

Date: February 27, 2020

Source: University of Bonn

The tiny forefoot of a lizard of the genus Anolis was trapped in amber about 15 to 20 million years ago. Every detail of this rare fossil is visible under the microscope. But the seemingly very good condition is deceptive: The bone is largely decomposed and chemically transformed, very little of the original structure remains. The results, which are now presented in the journal PLOS ONE, provide important clues as to what exactly happens during fossilization.

How do fossils stay preserved for millions of years? Rapid embedding is an important prerequisite for protecting the organisms from access by scavengers, for example. Decomposition by microorganisms can for instance be prevented by extreme aridity. In addition, the original substance is gradually replaced by minerals. The pressure from the sediment on top of the fossil ensures that the fossil is solidified. "That's the theory," says Jonas Barthel, a doctoral student at the Institute for Geosciences at the University of Bonn. "How exactly fossilization proceeds is currently the subject of intensive scientific investigation."

Amber is considered an excellent preservative. Small animals can be enclosed in a drop of tree resin that hardens over time. A team of geoscientists from the University of Bonn has now examined an unusual find from the Dominican Republic: The tiny forefoot of a lizard of the genus Anolis is enclosed in a piece of amber only about two cubic centimeters in size. Anolis species still exist today.

Vertebrate inclusions in amber are very rare

The Stuttgart State Museum of Natural History has entrusted the exhibit to the paleontologists of the University of Bonn for examination. "Vertebrate inclusions in amber are very rare, the majority are insect fossils," says Barthel. The scientists used the opportunity to investigate the fossilization of the seemingly very well preserved vertebrate fragment. Since 2018 there is a joint research project of the University of Bonn with the German Research Foundation, which contributes to the understanding of fossilization using experimental and analytical approaches. The present study was also conducted within the framework of this project.

The researchers had thin sections prepared for microscopy at the Institute for Evolutionary Biology at the University of Bonn. The claws and toes are very clearly visible in the honey-brown amber mass, almost as if the tree resin had only recently dripped onto them -- yet the tiny foot is about 15 to 20 million years old.

Scans in the micro-computer tomograph of the Institute for Geosciences revealed that the forefoot was broken in two places. One of the fractures is surrounded by a slight swelling. "This is an indication that the lizard had perhaps been injured by a predator," says Barthel. The other fracture happened after the fossil was embedded -- exactly at the place where a small crack runs through the amber.

Amber did not protect from environmental influences

The analysis of a thin section of bone tissue using Raman spectroscopy revealed the state of the bone tissue. The mineral hydroxyapatite in the bone had been transformed into fluoroapatite by the penetration of fluorine. Barthel: "This is surprising, because we assumed that the surrounding amber largely protects the fossil from environmental influences." However, the small crack may have encouraged chemical transformation by allowing mineral-rich solutions to find their way in. In addition, Raman spectroscopy shows that collagen, the bone's elastic component, had largely degraded. Despite the seemingly very good state of preservation, there was actually very little left of the original tissue structure.

"We have to expect that at least in amber from the Dominican Republic, macromolecules are no longer detectable," says the supervisor of the study, Prof. Dr. Jes Rust from the Institute for Geosciences. It was not possible to detect more complex molecules such as proteins, but final analyses are still pending. The degradation processes in this amber deposit are therefore very advanced, and there is very little left of the original substance.

Acids in tree resin attack bone

Amber is normally considered an ideal preservative: Due to the tree resin, we have important insights into the insect world of millions of years. But in the lizard's bone tissue, the resin might even have accelerated the degradation processes: Acids in the tree secretion have probably attacked the apatite in the bone -- similar to tooth decay.

Story Source:

Materials provided by University of Bonn. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

Journal Reference:

1. H. Jonas Barthel, Denis Fougerouse, Thorsten Geisler, Jes Rust. Fluoridation of a lizard bone embedded in Dominican amber suggests open-system behavior. PLOS ONE, 2020; 15 (2): e0228843 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0228843

Cite This Page:

• MLA
• APA
• Chicago

University of Bonn. "Rare lizard fossil preserved in amber." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 27 February 2020. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/02/200227114504.htm>.

Permian lizard-like animal suffered from a bone condition similar to Paget's disease

Susceptibility to this type of disease may extend back to the Early Permian

Date: August 7, 2019

Source: PLOS

A lizard-like animal that lived 289 million years ago suffered from a bone condition similar to Paget's disease, according to a study published August 7, 2019 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Yara Haridy of the Museum für Naturkunde in Berlin and colleagues. This is the most ancient known case of such a disease.

The animal in question belonged to an extinct group of lizard-like creatures called varanopids, relatives of the earliest ancestors of mammals or reptiles. The authors identified the disease in an isolated pair of tail vertebrae discovered in an Early Permian cave at Richards Spur, Oklahoma. Micro-CT scanning allowed examination of both the external and internal structure of the elements, revealing that in some places the bone had been thinned by abnormally high levels of reabsorption, while in other areas excessive bone growth had resulted in abnormal bone thickening and the ultimate fusion of the two vertebrae.

Read on

Wee Lizard Found in Dinosaur's Belly from 120 Million Years Ago

By Mindy Weisberger, Senior Writer | July 14, 2019 10:16pm ET

About 120 million years ago, a small dinosaur gulped down a lizard, swallowing the reptile whole. The wee lizard's story might have ended there, but the dinosaur died soon after and was preserved as a fossil. Millions of years later, paleontologists discovered the scaly meal in the dinosaur's belly.

Scientists found the lizard when they examined the fossil of a feathered dinosaur named Microraptor zhaoianus, a small carnivore from the early Cretaceous period (145.5 million to 65.5 million years ago) in what is now northeastern China. In Microraptor's abdomen was a near-complete skeleton that the researchers identified as a previously unknown lizard species.

This "exceptional specimen" paints a clearer picture of the animal diversity in this region during the Cretaceous, and it hints at what was on the menu for dinosaur predators like Microraptor, the scientists reported in a new study.

Microraptor belongs to the theropod (meat-eating) dinosaur group known as the dromaeosaurids — small to medium-sized bird-like dinosaurs — which also includes Velociraptor and Deinonychus. It had flight feathers on its front and back limbs, and it could likely glide or even fly, according to the study.

The fossilized lizard's skeleton was still whole and nearly complete, and it appeared to belong to a juvenile. Its position inside the dinosaur's gut showed that it was gulped down headfirst, "consistent with feeding behavior in extant carnivorous lizards and birds," the study authors wrote.

They dubbed the ingested lizard Indrasaurus wangi: The species name honors paleontologist Yuan Wang, director of the Paleozoological Museum of China, and Indrasaurus refers to a legend from ancient Indian texts about the deity Indra, who was swallowed whole by a dragon.

Continued

This 240-Million-Year-Old Reptile Is the 'Mother of All Lizards'

By Mindy Weisberger, Senior Writer | May 30, 2018 03:58pm ET

HBO's "Game of Thrones" features a "Mother of Dragons," but a fossil that's hundreds of millions of years old was recently identified as the "mother of all lizards" (and snakes, too).

This ancient lizard was the direct ancestor of approximately 10,000 species alive today that have inhabited the planet for more than 240 million years.

Paleontologists initially described the tiny reptile, Megachirella wachtleri, in 2003. But recent scans revealed features in the fossil that were hidden, enabling scientists to identify Megachirella as the oldest known ancestor in the squamate lineage — the reptile group that includes lizards and snakes.

Megachirella, which predates the fossils previously thought to belong to the earliest squamates by around 75 million years, bridged the gap between the oldest known squamates and the estimated origins of this reptile group derived from molecular data, researchers reported in a new study. [In Photos: Amber Preserves Cretaceous Lizards]

Read on

Frozen in Time: Ancient, Long-Fingered Lizard Trapped in Amber

By Laura Geggel, Senior Writer | September 11, 2017 11:40am ET

In a case worthy of Sherlock Holmes, researchers are trying to figure out exactly when and where in the world a long-fingered lizard got trapped in the sticky sap of a tree.

Over time, that sap, or tree resin turned into amber, preserving the lizard's remains, including its textured skin. This unique lizard-amber block somehow came into the possession of a man who donated it to the Miller Museum of Geology at Queen's University in Ontario, Canada, in the 1980s, but the man didn't report the artifact's age or provenance.

"The man who donated it died, unfortunately," said Ellen Handyside, an undergraduate student studying geological engineering at Queen's University, who is leading the research into the amber-encased lizard. "We are really starting from scratch" in determining its history, she said. [In Photos: Amber Preserves Cretaceous Lizards]

Read on 

Fossil of a beetle inside a lizard inside a snake – an ancient food chain – via Herp Digest

Feb 23, 2017, Vintage News

A unique fossil, demonstrating an ancient food chain was discovered by researchers studying the Messel pit on a dig site near Frankfurt, and it is believed to be 48 million years old.

The specimen contains a snake that died shortly after eating a lizard that had recently eaten a beetle.

It is impressive that such a fossil exists in such a well-preserved state, and that each consumed creature is recognizable. The snake was known to be a member of the species Palaeopython fischeri, which is an extinct type of snake once found in what is now Germany. It was a tree-dwelling snake related to modern boas. Growing to a size of up to 2 meters, they could live on the ground or in shallow water near riverbanks. The individual in this fossil, however, was only 103 centimeters in length and so is thought to be a juvenile.

The lizard belongs to the species Geiseltaliellus maarius. It is an extinct lizard of the iguanian lizards that are found in Germany, Belgium, and France. The best-preserved ones are found in the Messel pit in Germany. These lizards had long legs, short arms, and a long tail. The tail was adapted to running and climbing on the ground and in trees. The long toe bones of these lizards, like those of their living cousins, suggest that this species spent most of its time in trees. The probable paleoenvironment of the Messel Pit would have been a dense forest.

Paleoecology is the science of determining ancient environments. Using the evidence found in fossils, it reconstructs the ecosystems these creatures would have lived in. Traces left behind in the fossil record, such as seeds, shells, teeth, and pollen, help scientists infer characteristics of the environment. Therefore, a fossil field like the Messel pit in Germany offers valuable clues to not just the creatures themselves, but to what the plant life would have been like too.

Scientists can tell that the lizard is inside the snake due to the way the snake’s ribs overlap those of the lizard. The lizard had the ability to shed its tail when attacked but did not do so before being eaten, as its complete remains are intact inside the snake. The beetle is not preserved enough to be meaningfully identified.

Also discovered at the same site is the last meal of grapes and leaves inside a fossilized prehistoric horse. Pollen grains found inside fossilized bird and insect remains visible in fish excrement are a testament to the excellent preservation qualities of the area.

Previous fossils of reptiles contained only plant remains due to the speed of the creature’s digestive system. The Messel Pit will likely yield more fascinating finds as digs continue.

New lizard found in Dominican Republic

Suggests similar evolution occurs on separate Caribbean islands

Date: June 17, 2016

Source: University of Toronto

A University of Toronto-led team has reported the discovery of a new lizard in the middle of the most- visited island in the Caribbean, strengthening a long-held theory that communities of lizards can evolve almost identically on separate islands.

The chameleon-like lizard -- a Greater Antillean anole dubbed Anolis landestoyi for the naturalist who first spotted and photographed it -- is one of the first new anole species found in the Dominican Republic in decades.

"As soon as I saw the pictures, I thought, 'I need to buy a plane ticket,'" says Luke Mahler of U of T's Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology and lead author of an article on the discovery published today online in The American Naturalist.

"Our immediate thought was that this looks like something that's supposed to be in Cuba, not in Hispaniola -- the island that Haiti and the Dominican Republic share," says Mahler. "We haven't really seen any completely new species here since the early 1980s."

What's more, the new species could help piece together a long-standing puzzle of similar looking species that exist on different Caribbean islands.

"I got a grainy photo from local naturalist Miguel Landestoy, who saw a nesting pair of birds that were mobbing a branch," says Mahler. "He saw they were flying around what he thought was a new species of heavily camouflaged anole clinging to that branch." It wasn't possible to say much from the photo though, and Mahler didn't think much of it. "You get all these people who say they found a new species but it's almost always just an atypical individual of a very common species," says Mahler. "So you get pretty hardened against thinking claims like these are legit."

A few years after the initial photo, Landestoy caught one of the lizards and emailed clear images of the find to Mahler and several other researchers he'd been working with. "As soon as I opened the email, I thought 'what on earth is that!?,'" says Mahler.

Well-studied ecologically, Greater Antillean anoles are a textbook example of a phenomenon known as replicated adaptive radiation, where related species evolving on different islands diversify into similar sets of species that occupy the same ecological niches.

Examples of this could be long-tailed grass dwellers, bright green canopy lizards, and stocky brown species that perch low on tree trunks, each living in similar environments on more than one island.

Read on … 

Giant killer lizard fossil shines new light on early Australians - via Herp Digest

Date: September 23, 2015

Source: University of Queensland

As if life wasn't hard enough during the last Ice Age, research led by the University of Queensland has found Australia's first human inhabitants had to contend with giant killer lizards.

UQ vertebrate palaeoecologist Dr Gilbert Price said researchers working in Central Queensland were amazed when they unearthed the first evidence that Australia's early human inhabitants and giant apex predator lizards had overlapped.

"Our jaws dropped when we found a tiny fossil from a giant lizard during a two metre deep excavation in one of the Capricorn Caves, near Rockhampton," Dr Price said.

"The one-centimetre bone, an osteoderm, came from under the lizard's skin and is the youngest record of a giant lizard on the entire continent."

Dr Price and his colleagues used radiocarbon and uranium thorium techniques to date the bone as about 50,000 years old, coinciding with the arrival of Australia's Aboriginal inhabitants.

"We can't tell if the bone is from a Komodo dragon -- which once roamed Australia -- or an even bigger species like the extinct Megalania monitor lizard, which weighed about 500kg and grew up to six metres long," Dr Price said.

"The find is pretty significant, especially for the timeframe that it dates."

The largest living lizard in Australia today is the perentie, which can grow up to two metres long.

Dr Price, from UQ's School of Earth Sciences, said massive lizards and even nine-metre long inland crocodiles roamed Australia during the last Ice Age in the Pleistocene geological period.

"It's been long-debated whether or not humans or climate change knocked off the giant lizards, alongside the rest of the megafauna," he said.

"Humans can only now be considered as potential drivers of their extinction."

The bone was found in what could be Australia's most fossil-rich site, with the Capricorn Caves housing millions of bones of many species.

Dr Price said scientists could only hypothesise how the giant lizard bone made its way inside the cave, which contains bones of many rodents regurgitated by owls.

He said a crew of volunteer citizen scientists helped with the research by sorting and sieving specimens.

Capricorn Caves manager Ann Augusteyn said the find highlighted her team's "huge responsibility" to care for the caves.

"This study also begs the question -- what else is entombed in our caves and what else can we learn?"

The research, in collaboration with the Australian National University, the Queensland Museum and Southern Cross University, was supported by the Capricorn Caves, the Australian Research Council, the Australian Institute for Nuclear Science and Energy and community organisations such as the Ian Potter Foundation.

The research is published in Quaternary Science Reviews.

Story Source:

The above post is reprinted from materials provided by University of Queensland. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

ournal Reference:

1. Gilbert J. Price, Julien Louys, Jonathan Cramb, Yue-xing Feng, Jian-xin Zhao, Scott A. Hocknull, Gregory E. Webb, Ai Duc Nguyen, Renaud Joannes-Boyau. Temporal overlap of humans and giant lizards (Varanidae; Squamata) in Pleistocene Australia. Quaternary Science Reviews, 2015; 125: 98 DOI: 10.1016/j.quascirev.2015.08.013

Cite This Page:

• MLA
• APA

• Chicago

University of Queensland. "Giant killer lizard fossil shines new light on early Australians." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 23 September 2015. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/09/150923134114.htm>.

Harry Potter sectumsempra spell inspires lizard name

4 June 2015 

Measuring just 11cm (4in) from snout to tail, Clevosaurus sectumsemper is the smallest of the clevosaurs or 'Gloucester lizards'

A previously-undiscovered species of ancient lizard has been named after a spell cast in the Harry Potter books.

The 205-million-year-old reptile was discovered in a drawer of fossils at the University of Bristol by student Catherine Klein.

Measuring just 11cm (4in) from snout to tail, Clevosaurus sectumsemper is the smallest of the "Gloucester lizards".

Ms Klein said the name was "a nod" to the sectumsempra curse cast by Severus Snape in Harry Potter.

Continued ...

Slick and slender snake beats short and stubby lizard in sand swimming

Date:

January 12, 2015

Source:

Georgia Institute of Technology

Summary:

For swimming through sand, a slick and slender snake can perform better than a short and stubby lizard. That's one conclusion from a study of the movement patterns of the shovel-nosed snake, a native of the Mojave Desert of the Southwest United States.

continued ...

Kids strap lizard to rocket and blast it into the sky

Cruel footage has emerged of kids strapping a lizard to a rocket and launching it into sky.

The upsetting clip shows a small reptile tied down to a firework with yellow string.

Someone lights the explosive as wicked onlookers chuckle and film the scene with their phones.

It launches with immense force and is airborne for around seven seconds before it explodes.

Footage has been posted on YouTube and LiveLeak with the title ‘first lizard to go to the moon’ or ‘astronaut lizard’.

http://metro.co.uk/2014/07/09/kids-strap-lizard-to-rocket-and-blast-it-into-the-sky-4791704/

New lizard species discovered

March 2014: A new species of lizard has been discovered at a national park in Peru. The new species, named Potamites erythrocularis, was located in the upper part of Manu National Park in Peru´s southeast Cusco region, the country's environmental ministry said.

“It differs from the others by having messy keeled scales on the back, undivided frontonasal scales, a red ring around the eye in males and absence of femoral pores in females," the ministry said. 

The research was led by scientists Alessandro Catenazzi and German Chavez and a team of biologists and rangers of the Manu National Park, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The park covers 1.5 million hectares (3.7 million acres) and ranges from 150 meters to 4,200 meters above sea level. It is one of the, if not the, most bilogically diverse places on earth. 

http://www.wildlifeextra.com/do/ecco.py/view_item?listid=1&listcatid=1&listitemid=18625&live=0#cr

23-Million-Year-Old Lizard Fossil Found In Mexico – via Herp Digest

Published July 08, 2013

San Cristobal de las Casas, Mexico –  Mexican scientists are studying a complete fossil of a lizard that lived some 23 million years ago and whose soft tissue remains have been preserved in amber.

The small piece of fossil resin, which is in the shape of a trapezoid and entombs the skeleton, was found several months ago in the Simojovel amber deposits of the northern part of the southeastern state of Chiapas.

Amber often contains small remains of plants and animals, but it is rare to find complete vertebrates such as this lizard, preliminarily identified as a new species of the genus Anolis and currently on display at the Amber Museum in San Cristobal de las Casas.

Francisco Riquelme of the National Autonomous University of Mexico's Physics Institute told Efe the specimen, measuring about approximately 1.8 inches (or 4.5 centimeters) by .5 inches (or 1.3 centimeters) was "a complete and articulated animal that also preserves remains of soft tissue and skin."

Chiapas's Paleontology Museum director Gerardo Carbot fossil specimens found in the state date back a minimum of 23 million years ago because that is the age of the amber that is extracted from deposits in the municipalities of Simojovel, Huitihupan, El Bosque, Pueblo Nuevo, Palenque, Totolapa and Malpaso.

Extinct lizard named after The Doors' singer Jim Morrison

By Melissa Hogenboom, Science reporter, BBC News

A newly described 6ft lizard that roamed South East Asia from 36-40 million years ago has been named after The Doors singer Jim Morrison.

The choice of name Barbaturex morrisoni is a play on the late frontman's epithet "The Lizard King".

Higher temperatures at the time are thought to have helped the lizard evolve to its unusual size.

The scientists were surprised to find that the reptile successfully competed for food against mammals.

“You can't fully understand the evolution of ecosystems in the modern world without looking at the ones that preceded them, ”Dr Jason, Head University of Nebraska-Lincoln

The study is published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

A team of palaeontologists analysed fossils of the giant reptile and discovered it is the largest plant-eating lizard to have ever existed.

It lived alongside other herbivorous and carnivorous mammals during the Eocene epoch. It was likely to have weighed about 27.2 kg (60 pounds).

Modern day lizards, like iguanas and agamids, are smaller than other herbivores and provide tasty meals for many larger predators.

But Barbaturex morrisoni was larger than most carnivorous mammals. And competition for resources did not appear to restrict its evolution into such a large lizard, the study found.

Read more

Oil Lobbyists Oversee Protection of Threatened Lizard – via Herp Digest

The Texas Tribune, by Jay Root, April 24, 2013 

This is one in a series of occasional stories about ethics and transparency in the part-time Texas Legislature. 

When Texas promised to protect a threatened lizard in the oil-rich Permian Basin, state officials entrusted the day-to-day oversight to a nonprofit that sounds like an environmental group: the Texas Habitat Conservation Foundation. 

What’s not advertised is the occupation of the board members who created it. 

They are all registered lobbyists for the powerful Texas Oil and Gas Association, also known as TXOGA. 

The industry group's prominent role in the fate of the dunes sagebrush lizard has angered both environmentalists and influential GOP lawmakers who want to reform the way Texas oversees threatened and endangered species. The flap has also exacerbated traditional tensions between corporate oil interests and independent producers, and it has put Comptroller Susan Combs in the crosshairs of some fellow Republicans. 

“This is a case of the fox guarding the hen house,” said Jay Lininger, biologist at the Center for Biological Diversity, which has already taken steps to sue over the state-federal conservation plan. “If the oil and gas industry is regulating itself, then Americans have no hope of a quality environment.” 

The controversy has its origins in the special session of 2011, when then-state Rep. Warren Chisum, R-Pampa, slipped an amendment onto the innocuous-sounding “fiscal matters” bill that had to pass because it provided badly needed revenue for a cash-strapped Legislature. 

Chisum’s amendment, which he said was pushed by the oil and gas association, granted key state authority over the handling of endangered species matters to the office of the comptroller, a role that has traditionally been played by the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, officials said. 

“There was a group of us, the people from TXOGA, and we said we need to get this done," Chisum told The Texas Tribune. "That’s how it got started. Of course, we brought the comptroller in." 

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service had already proposed listing the lizard as endangered by then, a move strongly opposed by TXOGA and others in the oil industry, along with virtually any Texas Republican near a microphone. 

In response, Combs, working with the oil industry, landowners, local government officials and others, proposed a voluntary program to protect the dunes sagebrush lizard. The idea was to forestall a declaration or “listing” of the lizard as an endangered species, which would come with environmental restrictions that opponents said would inflict serious economic damage on a region described as the nation’s top oil producer. 

Lacking wildlife expertise in the state’s chief tax agency, Combs then contracted with adivision of Texas A&M University — the Texas AgriLife Extension Service — in November 2011. But A&M needed help on the ground, so it sent out a request for proposal for a contractor that could handle contacts with landowners and oil companies who would sign up for the voluntary program and undertake measures to save the lizard — like cutting down mesquite and removing old oil equipment. 

Officials say no one responded to the contracting request. TXOGA then went to Combs and floated a plan to have the oil and gas lobby group start up a nonprofit foundation to implement the Texas Conservation Plan in the lizard’s oil-rich habitat in the Permian Basin, according to TXOGA lobbyist and foundation board member Deb Hastings. 

“We did have a conversation with the comptroller’s office to see if it would be appropriate if we set up a foundation temporarily,” Hastings said. She said she did not recall that Combs raised any objections. 

The foundation was formed in February 2012 with three registered TXOGA lobbyists overseeing it as board members: Hastings, Robert Looney and Mari Ruckel. 

When asked if anyone ever thought putting oil lobbyists in charge of lizard protection in an area dependent on the industry might present a conflict of interest, Hastings said: “I could see where there was some perception risk regarding that, but there was nothing nefarious about this. It was above board. It was meant to ensure the species was not listed.” Hastings emphasized that the foundation hired a wildlife biologist to handle the scientific oversight and run the day-to-day operations. 

U.S. Fish and Wildlife withdrew its proposal to list the lizard last summer, but could reinstate it if voluntary efforts fail. 

Lesli Gray, spokeswoman for the federal agency, said the officials gathered in Midland this month with counterparts from Texas A&M and the comptroller's office. She also said the comptroller's office has been providing regular updates as required in its state-federal conservation agreement. 

"The comptroller is very pleased that the work done by all of the stakeholders involved in this process resulted in a plan that caused the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service not to list the DSL," said Combs spokesman Lauren Willis. "We are proud of the role we played in that process and the work we did to save the West Texas oil and gas economy." 

But some powerful Republican lawmakers are voicing concerns about TXOGA's role and the comptroller's oversight of endangered species. Chief among them is Sen. Kel Seliger, R-Amarillo, whose district includes much of the Permian Basin and the lizard’s habitat. 

Seliger said independent oil companies are upset that TXOGA, which represents the interests of giants Exxon, Chevron and others, would be in charge of mitigation efforts for the whole industry — and potentially stacking the deck in favor of itself. 

"You might have competitors determining costs that other competitors would have to incur to drill oil wells," he said. 

More broadly, Seliger said there is no reason why the state comptroller should be in charge of coordinating the response to endangered species. He has a bill that would move that authority — which includes the right to hold the federal permit Combs now has at the comptroller’s office — to Texas Parks and Wildlife. An oversight board composed of several state agencies, including the comptroller’s office, is included in the latest version of the legislation, he said. 

Willis, the Combs spokeswoman, said the comptroller is leaving the matter to the Legislature, but Seliger said the pressure against the legislation has been intense. He said Combs, TXOGA and the major oil companies were all trying to kill it. 

“The comptroller and the majors are lobbying vigorously against it,” Seliger said. Rep. Dennis Bonnen, R-Angleton, who is carrying the legislation in the House, said oil industry opponents are trying to “threaten” members who dare support the effort to give oversight authority over endangered species listings to another agency. 

“No one has been able to explain to me why our tax collector and accountant for the state of Texas is responsible for managing endangered species issues,” he said. “It makes no logical sense whatsoever.” 

For its part, TXOGA is poised to step out of direct involvement by handing over its authority to other board members. But the current board got to select the new one, and it has already identified its incoming chairman: Chisum, who sponsored the TXOGA-backed bill giving Combs the authority to handle endangered species matters. 

Now an oil and gas lobbyist himself, Chisum tapped two others to join him — biochemist Glenna Kyle and Joe Maley of the Texas Agricultural Land Trust, TXOGA officials said. 

Chisum was asked to respond to complaints that oil company interests shouldn't be in charge of the foundation set up to enact the conservation plan. He said qualified biologists are hired to do the work, but noted oil companies were paying to participate in the voluntary plan. Chisum said they should have a say in how it's implemented. “It’s our money," he said.