In a paper appearing in Nature, a consortium of scientists share the information they've gleaned from the first sequencing of a reptile’s genome. They believe that A. carolinensis could be important for understanding the evolution of the amniotic egg, and that its genome could help them discover how it has so easily adapted to a number of various habitats, as well as lead them to the common ancestor that all amniotes (species that reproduce via amniotic eggs) share.

Amniotic eggs are eggs that have a shell and can hold water. They're a big evolutionary deal because they allowed species to be able to reproduce on land. Scientists have sequenced the genomes of mammals and birds who reproduce in this way, but A. carolinensis is the first reptile.