Abricó Beach

This guide to Abrico Beach in Rio de Janeiro's Grumari park tells you about a creature you might be sharing the sand with: Liolaemus lutzae, a sand-colored lizard first described by German zoologist Robert Mertens in 1938, found nowhere on Earth except a roughly two-hundred-kilometer stretch of this coastline. It traces what has wiped the species out from beach after beach elsewhere along the coast, as dune vegetation gave way to parking lots and boardwalks. Look at the low grasses just above the tideline as you walk past Rio's only officially sanctioned naturist beach.