Asexual lizards found in Vietnam expedition

Internationally renowned reptile and amphibian expert L. Lee Grismer says he has discovered two new herpetological species: lesbian lizards and psychedelic geckos, both natives of Vietnam.

He and his son, a budding herpetologist, made the discoveries during a grueling two-week expedition to Southeast Asia last August. The finds add to the nearly 60 herpetological species previously unknown to the scientific world that Grismer has found.

The lesbian, or asexual lizards, are 18 inches long and produce perfect clones. The mature females arouse one another and pretend to mate, which causes them to ovulate and lay eggs. The spectacular 5-inch psychedelic geckos seem to be painted fluorescent lavender, orange and yellow and glow in the dark.

"Lesbian"and "psychedelic"aren't their new scientific names, of course. Father and son properly christened their findings in papers they submitted to Zootaxa, a leading herpetology journal.

In Vietnam, they endured hundreds of miles of tortuous (and torturous) travel on flimsy motorbikes on streets with no lanes, in overcrowded vans with vomiting passengers and on slow-rocking riverboats. Roaches skittered over their beds and mosquitoes strafed them where they slept in the plywood shacks without doors.

When father and son and a Vietnamese-speaking colleague finally reached the west coast outpost of Binh Chau, they learned that villagers had eaten the batch of live reptiles awaiting the scientists. Through a lucky accident, they stumbled upon and paid a young boy with lizard traps to catch their quarry in the 20-foot sand dunes.

Despite the dangers, dirt and discomforts, Jesse said they take "calculated risks. We keep an ear to the ground. We're very cautious."

In Cambodia, they crawled on hands and knees through the bamboo forests to the top of Mt. Tumpor in the Cardamom Mountains.

James Wilson, chairman of the biology department at La Sierra University in Riverside, Calif., praised Grismer as a strong scholar, researcher and teacher — one of the school's most valuable assets. "He's a major player in herpetology. He just doesn't quit."

Indeed, at 54, Grismer, who lives in Temecula, Calif. boasts that he's never turned back from a trek. But then, he revels in the chase as much as the rewards. Along the way he's collected more than 10,000 tissue samples from global excursions to remote regions.

What's more, he's dragged his son, Jesse, 27, into his sometimes harrowing adventures that have included dodging land mines, extracting leeches from tender body parts and rappelling down a ravine into a sinkhole.

Jesse, who will begin working on his doctorate in herpetology next fall at the University of Kansas, puts it this way: "We love doing it although we know it's going to suck."