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Gila Monster — printable fact sheet
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Gila Monster
Heloderma suspectum
Heloderma suspectum is one of only a handful of venomous lizards, a slow, heavy-bodied burrow-dweller of the Sonoran and Mojave deserts armoured in bead-like osteoderms and patterned in black and salmon-pink. Its venom is not injected by fangs but delivered by grooved teeth in t…
Did you know?
- The venom of the Gila Monster has been used to develop drugs for treating type 2 diabetes in humans.
- Exendin-4 was found in Gila monster saliva because the lizard's digestive system must restart after months of fasting; the same hormone-like molecule that primes its gut now underpins blockbuster diabetes drugs. The tail is a fat gauge - a plump tail means a well-fed lizard, a thin one means a hungry season. A Gila monster can consume up to a third of its body weight in a single meal, which explains how so few meals sustain it.
What I learned
Draw the gila monster
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