shed an appendage or limb, and this ability has independently evolved in many vertebrates such as other reptiles, fish, and amphibians. Caudal autotomy has developed as a last resort anti-predator behavior, when other anti-predator behaviors like fleeing and crypsis fail. By detaching their tails, lizards are able to flee from their predators quicker, while the thrashing of the detached tails post-autotomy serves to distract the predator and allow the lizard to successfully escape. These lizards are able to shed their tail at any point along the length of it, as most of their caudal vertebrae have fracture planes. Although the immediate survival benefits are evident, the subsequent lack of a tail hinders locomotion, interferes with habitat use and activity, and increases an individual’s susceptibility to future encounters with predators. After losing their tails, L. delicata cannot utilize their caudal autotomy capabilities as a defense strategy again until their tail regrows to a sufficient length. Furthermore, the benefits of a long tail include increased stride lengths, which become significantly smaller with the loss of their tail, thus hindering locomotor performance and enhancing future predation risks. The tails also serve as fat reserves, so the length of the tail discarded correlates to the amount of energy storage lost due to autotomy. Additionally, because lizards become less active after autotomy, they increase the amount of time spent in shelters or microhabitats, which may decrease their vulnerability to predators in the short term, but impacts their foraging ability, thermoregulatory mannerisms, and tail regeneration efficiency. Biological evidence suggests that tail regrowth is stimulated by a regenerating spinal cord. These lizards’ spinal cords consist primarily of ependymal cells that group around a tubular central canal containing cerebrospinal fluid. Axons are interspersed between these ependymal cells and encased in collagenous leptomeninges, and although their exact origin is unknown, it is hypothesized that the axons come from differentiated cells in the regenerate or from neuronal somata in the tail stump. Within the spinal cords of regenerating tails, specialized types of cells known as cerebral spinal fluid contacting neurons (CSFCN) have been observed, and they grow in a pear-like shape and are about the size of or bigger than their neighboring ependymal cells. Some distinct biomolecular features of CSFCNs include the mitochondria with few tube-like invaginations and the network of microtubules. Fingerlike luminal protrusions, large amounts of cytoskeletal elements, and the contact between fingerlike projections of receptor cell dendrites