A recent study using New Orleans’ brown anole lizards to detect lead in urban areas found extremely high levels of lead contamination.
The study, led by Tulane University evolutionary biology Ph.D. student and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency biologist Annelise Blanchette, uncovered that the city’s Cuban brown anoles have the highest recorded blood lead concentration of any free-living vertebrate. The lizards had an average concentration of 955 μg/dL, with one lizard reading 3192 μg/dL.
No level of lead is safe in humans. For reference, the Center for Disease Control recommends anyone with a reading higher than 3.5 μg/dL to seek medical treatment…