Soon after leaving them there, the Croatian War of Independence, which lasted until the mid-1990s, cut off the scientists from their lizard subjects.
When tourism began again in 2004, the scientists returned, finding more than 5,000 lizards that were related to the original bunch. Furthermore, the lizards' stomachs changed to adapt to their new vegetarian lifestyle by slowing down food digestion.
Along with adapting to eating plants, the lizards gained the ability to bite harder with a head that had grown in all directions. Their social and behavioral traits changed, and they were able to mate quickly due to the abundance of their new-found favorite food: plants.
All of this occurred in just 30 lizard generations, which is equivalent to humans growing a new appendix in about several hundred years.
