I came home last night and got in the shower. As I walked back into my room from the shower, there was a medium sized lizard on my desk. I startled it and it jumped off and ran under my bed. In the process it shed its tail. They do this as a distraction for predators. The tails can continue to twitch for quite some time to give them chance to flee. The lizard will grow another tail over the next couple of months.
It looks really creepy but I found it fascinating. This mechanism is called "autotomy". The tail has what are called "fracture planes" spaced regularly along its length. These can either be in-between the vertebrae or in the middle of them, depending on the species It is at these fracture planes where the break can occur. Everything separates when the tail is shed; skin, muscles, blood supply, nerves, and bone. Here's where the creepy stuff starts. After shedding, the tail starts to twitch and move on the ground. This hopefully provides the lizard with enough to escape while the predator is otherwise engaged.
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