Finding a new specie is actually much easier than proving that it is indeed new. This is what LSU's Museum of Natural Science">Chris Austin, assistant curator of herpetology at LSU's Museum of Natural Science, proved upon discovering a new species of lizard from Borneo.

Conducting a field research with colleague Indraneil Das of the Institute of Biodiversity and Environmental Conservation at the Universiti Malaysia Sarawak, they actually found four specimens at once. Looking under logs, which according to him is the most efficient way to find lizards in the rainforest, they immediately found two individuals of the one specie, and two more under another.

In order to determine that what they found were new to science, they had to examine the collections of natural history museums around the world in order to compare known biodiversity from the discovered ones. Austin also used molecular genetics over at the LSUMNS lab for him to decipher the genetic code of the lizards.

As it turns out, the new species is a close cousin of a type of skink, found in the southern Philippines. It is, however, distinguished from it in more than one way: different color patterns, structure, differences in scale count, and significant genetic variations.

The findings of Austin and Das will be published in the prestigious Journal of Herpetology in March 2007. The name of the species will be revealed there.