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Australian skinks are really fascinating, Rabosky says. Two groups in particular have gone evolutionarily crazy, each splitting into as many as 100 different species. In contrast to skinks on other continents, and even some other groups in Australia, the diversity of these particular groups has really exploded.

Raboskys study included skinks with spots, skinks with stripes, skinks with four legs, or twoor none. Rabosky says there are at least 252 species of these lizards living Down Under, and probably many more that remain to be discovered.

The evolution of these skinks mirrors that of many groups of organismsfrom grasses, to beetles, to humans and our relativesin which some groups have spectacular diversity and others a paucity of species. For me as a scientist, says Rabosky, one of the great things about skinks is that there are just so darn many species, making the patterns in their diversity really clear.

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