Tsingy Girdled Lizard

Appearance

Dorsally brown, without light dorsolateral stripes. Dark brown spots on dorsal surface, especially on anterior part. Pale yellow spots on dorsal surface and especially on flanks. Males in breeding condition can have a more contrasted color with a bright blue throat and venter, and a bluish shade over much of the flanks.

Distribution

This species is endemic to Madagascar where it is known from two mainland localities in the extreme north of the island, Ankarana and Montagne des Français, at around 100 m elevation (Raselimanana et al. 2000) and from the small off-shore island Nosy Hara (Metcalf et al. 2007). The lizard's estimated extent of occurrence is 5,459 km².

Status

Listed as Least Concern because, although this species has a fairly restricted range (below 5,500 km²), it does not occur as a severely fragmented population and, although there may be some localized pressures in sites where this species is dependent on forest, there is no evidence of continuing decline in the extent and quality of its karst habitat.

Habitat

This terrestrial plated lizard is found in lowland dry, deciduous forest associated with karst outcrops, and also occurs in karst outside the forest. It is diurnally active and strongly associated with rock faces and crevices (Raselimanana et al. 2000), although juveniles occur in nearby leaf litter. On Nosy Hara islands its presence was significantly related to the availability of rocks and it was absent in sites with high ground vegetation cover (Metcalf et al. 2007). Conversely, in a survey of Montagne des Français all records of this species were from relatively undisturbed forest (D'Cruze and Kumar 2011).

Defense

This species is characterized by having a fragile body skin, with scales being readily shed in life when restrained, which may serve as an antipredator mechanism.