Temperatures rising just 1°C drastically increases likeliness of lizard malformation

Examples of severe malformations caused by thermal stress. The white scale bars equal 1cm. Top left: an embryo with exencephaly and caudal torsion; top right: embryo with severe axial deformation and skeletal displacement; bottom left: embryo with exencephaly and pronounced cranial flattening; bottom right: embryo with extreme generalized malformation affecting the entire body. As reptile embryos cannot behaviorally escape extreme heat, this highlights how climate warming may affect the survival Credit: Dillenburg et al., 2026.