Imagine setting out to study the feeding habits of lizards and ending up discovering that they have a clear preference for one type of pizza over another. It may sound like the plot of a comedy, but it became the basis of a real scientific study, and eventually earned its researchers one of science's most unusual honors, the 2025 Ig Nobel Prize in Nutrition.
The 2023 study, published in the African Journal of Ecology, documented how rainbow lizards ( Agama agama ) living near a beach resort in Togo repeatedly ignored their usual insect diet in favor of leftover pizza. Even more surprisingly, when given a choice, every observed lizard chose the same variety: four-cheese pizza.
