Folks at Xavier University tracked them down railroad tracks. Or have you heard it was the Lindners, another prominent local family, who brought them here? The lizards, instead, hitched a ride on plants the Lindners purchased on holiday inВ Florida?ДЄrea researchers certainly didn't wait for all the answers on how they came to Cincinnati to start asking questions about this invasive species.ДЄt Miami University, scientists put their fingers on their freeze-tolerance. Then there's the one whereВ an unnamed woman released them in her backyard in September 1951. 'Culture followers' is the more technical term, meaning they prefer what experts call disturbed habitat. Oh, and the European wall lizards always live where people live. They chase ants and cricketsВ in Spain and France, Germany and Austria, the Czech Republic and Hungary, Switzerland and Italy. They are so common in Europe that they've been dubbedВ the common wall lizard. The Lazarus lizards originally answered to Podarcis muralis,В the scientific name assigned to our lizards' Old World forebears. And inspired rare, remarkable scholarship shaping answers to a big questionВ about life itself.ДЄnd all because a boy wanted a travel souvenir. The not-so-tall tale behind the moniker, how they came here, how they have survived and thrived in this foreign land, crystallized over time.Д«ut through years of research, the once charming legend of our lizards evolved into scientific fact. More a mascot than a menace, a pet than a pest.В As aliens we adopted, we also gave them a new name: TheВ Lazarus lizards.