14 DAY TRIAL // Wildlife researchers and photographers exploring a cloud forest in northwest Ecuador recently came across an odd-looking reptile.
It turns out that this reptile was a so-called Pinocchio lizard, Live Science reports.
Seeing how this species was believed to have gone extinct about half a century ago, there is little doubt that the wildlife researchers were quite surprised to see this little fellow.
The same source tells us that the Pinocchio lizard found by Alejandro Arteaga with Tropical Herping and his colleagues was a male.
The researchers found it hanging by a branch, snapped some pictures of it, and then released it back into its natural habitat.
As their name suggests, male Pinocchio lizards have a fairly long nose-like appendage sticking out of their face.
Apparently, the appendage makes them more attractive to females, none of which have such elongated “noses.”