Three New Species of Tiny 'Dragons' Discovered in the Andes

Three new species of dragon-like lizards have been discovered in the Andes of Peru and Ecuador. The woodlizards were found after scientists took DNA samples.

The researchers conducted several expeditions to several localities along the Andes of Ecuador and Peru. There, they collected several specimens of woodlizards and then analyzed them.

Woodlizards are diurnal and live in lowland tropical rainforests, such as the Choco and western Amazon basin, as well as cloud forests on both sides of the Andes. The new species described by the scientists actually increases the number of species of woodlizards to 15.

"I started working with woodlizards in 2006 as part of my postdoc at the Smithsonian Institution under the direction of Kevin de Queiroz," said Omar Torres-Carvajal, one of the researchers, in a news release. "At that time only seven species of woodlizards had been described, and they were recognized in the literature as one of the less diverse groups of South American lizards. During the last few years we doubled the number of known species of woodlizards, showing that the diversity of these conspicuous reptiles had been underestimated."

The DNA evidence left no doubt that the specimens belonged to three undescribed species of woodlizards. They differ from their closest relatives in scale features, coloration and DNA.

"That more than half of the diversity of a group of large, dragon-looking reptiles from South America has been discovered in recent years should be heard by people in charge of conservation and funding agencies," said Torres-Cavajal.

The findings are published in the journal ZooKeys.

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