Central bearded dragon lizards usually develop into males or females depending on the sex chromosomes they inherit. But Australian researchers have found that turning up the heat during incubation caused unborn lizards to switch sex inside their eggs.

It had previously been assumed that an animal’s gender could be determined either by genes or by temperature as an embryo develops but not by both. But apparently in the case of the central bearded dragon, it appears that temperature can override genes that trigger male development.

The study is reported in the current issue of the journal Science. Source