Spiny Agama - Blue Headed Lizard

The Spiny Agama, or Blue Headed Lizard, will perch itself on any high ground or object in order to overlook its territory while also attempting to catch bugs and insects. This specific male is still immature. A full adult's head will be completely blue.

comments (3)

Ferdy Christant

Lion

Beautiful! A question though, are you sure it is identified correctly? Your title says it is a Spiny Agama, which refers to:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agama_armata

Posted 10 years ago
1. Living Wild
  
  Lion
  
  Thanks for the comment and question Ferdy. The absolute description of this species should actually read Agama aculeata aculeata. There are three subspecies which nearly look exactly the same. The determining factor in most cases is the location. This specific A. aculeata aculeata is found in Namibia, while, for example, the A. aculeata armata is found in Natal, Swaziland, Zimbabwe and Botswana etc.
  
  It is pretty confusing, but the article (website) referred to is very general and does not go into subspecies, with inhabitant areas very, very broad (and basically incorrect).
  
  Hope this helps ? Posted 10 years ago
2. 1. Ferdy Christant
    
    Lion
    
    Thank you very much, that definitely helps. I got confused because your title mentioned "spiny", and there's a separate species on wikipedia called like that, which is different from what you identified. Posted 10 years ago

The Agama aculeata

The ground agama is a species of lizard from the Agamidae family, found in most of sub-Saharan Africa (Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Republic of South Africa, Mozambique, S Angola, Tanzania, Zambia, Swaziland).

Info 2 0

Similar species: Snakes And Lizards

Species identified by Living Wild