Articles for tag: Asteroid Impact, Cretaceous survivors, Evolutionary Biology, K–Pg extinction, Night Lizards

Madrean Tropical Night Lizard on the Rock

Survivors Beneath the Ash: How Night Lizards Outlasted the Dinosaur-Killing Asteroid

April Joy Jovita

Sixty-six million years ago, a 10-kilometer-wide asteroid struck Earth, unleashing one of the most catastrophic mass extinctions in planetary history. The event obliterated three-quarters of Earth’s species, including all non-avian dinosaurs. Yet, in a stroke of evolutionary defiance, a small, secretive group of reptiles known as night lizards (family Xantusiidae) survived in the region closest ...