Lizard
can be seen in Ho Chi Minh
January 2013. Reptile specialists from the Alexander Koenig Museum in Bonn,
together with colleagues from the Lomonosov Moscow State University discovered
a magnificent new lizard in the south of Vietnam which has been
named Calotes bachae.
Like
all males of the family Agamidae, these lizards like to impress the ladies
with their brilliant colours. During courtship the heads of lizards become a
startling azure colour.
Unusually, like a Chameleon, they can also change their colours. For example, at night they are rather dark and brownish, almost inconspicuous. When courting they are bright blue, but after a turf war inferior males lose their colours, paling in just a few minutes.
The animals have been known to the Vietnamese and to scientists for a long time. However, they assumed that this lizard was the same species of blue lizard known from Myanmar and Thailand. However, the German-Russian research team determined, by using a genetic, test that this lizard belongs to a different species.
It is relatively easy to spot the new species as it seems quite happy to live in urban areas, and even in a metropolis like Ho Chi Minh City, where you can find the beautiful animals in parks and flower beds.
The
finding was described in the scientific journal Zootaxa
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