Friday, July 31, 2009

My First Encounter of an Arboreal Lizard

Allow me to start my discoveries for this week with this interesting animal. It was not the first animal that I found through my walk yesterday but it was the most exciting one (That is what I thought!!). It is very difficult to find them when you walk in the forest unless you are very lucky. So, I suppose to be very lucky yesterday..ehemmm….

Okay, back to the animal. I was passed by the closed canopy trees and suddenly I saw this guy on the tree. Actually I was quite surprise of his presence there and I was a little bit shock. I didn’t see him changing his colour while I am busy taking his pictures. Is it true he will change his colour? I am not sure with this species.

This guy is fall in the family of Agamidae and genus Gonocephalus. To identify till the species level I am not confident yet but my feeling is that this one might be Gonocephalus bornensis. Why is that so? Based on the morphology description, it sounds like him. Based on the habitat, it is more like him too. It inhabits primary rainforests in the midhills. I found this guy in primary forest with elevation around 700m a.s.l. It might be him. If it is him, then he is ENDEMIC to Borneo. Don’t trust me 100% guys. I may be wrong on this identification.


Any expertise out there? Help me with this handsome guy……:D

Alright, enough here. See you tomorrow friends.

2 comments:

Rick (Ratty) said...

A discovery like this is always great. I feel good when I see a new animal for me. I can't help you with it because you are more expert than I am. Maybe you don't know 100% if it is the right lizard, but it probably is the one.

Mother Goose said...

I don't know anything about animals in your portion af the world. I do know that you captured this guy in a couple of spectacular pictures. I can almost watch him blending into his surroundings.