Ricki Lewis | Feb 6, 2000 | 3 min read
Female fence lizard (Sceloporus undulatus) Conversations between neighbors in the biology department at the University of Akron have spawned a broader evolutionary view of leptin, the hormone that periodically makes headlines as a potential obesity cure-all. First described as an "adipostat" in mammals that signals the status of fat stores, leptin has since been implicated in feeding behavior, body temperature regulation, and onset of puberty.1,2 Its recent discovery in reptiles suggests a role