Work at Boston's Museum of Science isn't always glamorous. Someone's gotta clean the lizard boogers.
In a new behind-the-scenes video, a museum employee cheerfully shares their experience cleaning snot from the glass of Rocky the chuckwalla's enclosure.
The white stuff they are mopping up is no ordinary nasal mucus.
When the chukwalla 'goes achoo', it sneezes out salt. If the large lizard didn't do this, it would probably die of dehydration in the deserts of North America.
The specially salty snot is sometimes nicknamed 'snalt', as it contains potassium and sodium bicarbonate salts that dry as crystals. The species is often seen with white residue around its nostrils, a remnant of an earlier snort.
Without this mucosal mess, the large lizard might very well 'overdose' on salt.
The chukwalla's diet in the desert consists mainly of salty plants, and it rarely drinks water. Most of its hydration comes through food.
As such, the creature has evolved special glands that filter salt from its body, expelling the excess through the nose to prevent dehydration.
Some other lizard species with similarly salty diets also spray snalt, like marine iguanas in the Galapagos, which feed on algae, and mangrove monitor lizards, which can actually drink saltwater.
But the chuckwalla doesn't live near the coast. This lizard dwells in rocky desert habitats like Death Valley, one of the hottest places on Earth.
Still, the lizard has no fear of the heat. It hibernates during winter and is most active during the day, when summer temperatures can reach 49 °C (120 °F).
When threatened by predators, the chuckwalla empties its lungs, flatten its body, and crawls into tiny crevices. By blowing its lungs back up, the lizard makes it near impossible for a predator to pull them out.
It might live in an extreme place, but the chuckwalla comes highly prepared. Each salty sneeze is a blessing… just not for museum caretakers.