Picture a turtle the size of a Smart car, with a shell large enough to double as a kiddie pool. Paleontologists have found just such a specimen — the fossilized remains of a 60-million-year-old South American giant that lived in what is now Colombia.

Scientists have shed new light on one of the great unanswered questions of neuroscience: How the brain initiates rhythmic movements like walking, running and swimming.

A drug made from the saliva of the Gila monster lizard is effective in reducing the craving for food. Researchers have tested the drug on rats, who after treatment ceased their cravings for both food and chocolate.

Scientists have announced the discovery of a new species of lizard from remote, war-torn mountains in Central Africa. The new species is described from the Marungu Plateau, a montane area west of Lake Tanganyika in south-eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Biologists have released seven young Louisiana pine snakes on a restored longleaf pine stand in the Kisatchie National Forest in Louisiana. The release is the fourth in two years, part of a plan to restore a very rare snake to its range in Louisiana.

Twenty-four new species of lizards known as skinks have been discovered on Caribbean islands, half of which already may be extinct or close to extinction. The loss of many skink species can be attributed primarily to predation by the mongoose — a predatory mammal that was introduced by farmers. Other types of human activity, especially the removal of forests, also are to blame, according to the researchers.

The fungal infection that has killed a record number of amphibians worldwide leads to deadly dehydration in frogs in the wild, according to a new study. High levels of an aquatic fungus called Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd) disrupt fluid and electrolyte balance in wild frogs, the scientists say, severely depleting the frogs’ sodium and potassium levels and causing cardiac arrest and death.

Scientists have proposed that the bony structures in the skin of many early four-legged creatures might have been there to relieve acid buildup in bodily fluids. Analysis of their anatomy suggests that as they ventured out of water, the animals would have had trouble getting rid of enough CO2 to prevent acid buildup.

Scientists have studied loggerhead turtles’ re-adaptation to the environment. The results show that after a lengthy recovery in rehabilitation centers these animals display changes in behavior and may not adapt well to being free.

Stressed out lizard moms tend to give their developing embryos short shrift, but the hardship may ultimately be a good thing for the babies once they’re born, according to a new study.