An extraordinary feat pulled off by a lizard could suggest the species is going through a rare evolutionary transition
Harmeet Kaur


Three-toed skink, Saiphos equalis, Craven, New South Wales, Australia (Photo by: Auscape/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
(CNN)For most of the animal kingdom, babies are born in one of two ways: their parent either lays eggs or gives birth to live offspring.

Recently, a three-toed skink (Saiphos equalis) pulled off an extraordinary feat: It laid three eggs and delivered another baby through live birth in the same pregnancy. That suggests that the lizard species is in a rare transitional form between egg-laying and live-bearing animals, according to a study published in Molecular Ecology last month.
"We affectionately call the three-toed skink 'the weirdest lizard in the world' -- but it can tell us a lot about the evolution of reproductive strategies," Camilla Whittington, one of the study's lead authors and an evolutionary biologist at the University of Sydney, wrote in an email to CNN.
It was the first record of egg-laying and live birth in a single pregnancy