The Madagascar girdled lizard or Madagascar plated lizard (''Zonosaurus madagascariensis'') is a species of

lizard Lizards are a widespread group of squamate reptiles, with over 7,000 species, ranging across all continents except Antarctica, as well as most oceanic island chains. The group is paraphyletic since it excludes the snakes and Amphisbaenia alt ...

in the family

Gerrhosauridae The Gerrhosauridae are a family of lizards native to Africa and Madagascar. Habitat Also known as plated lizards, species in the family Gerrhosauridae live in a range of habitats, from rocky crevices to sand dunes. Description Their form is va ...

. It is found in

Madagascar Madagascar (; mg, Madagasikara, ), officially the Republic of Madagascar ( mg, Repoblikan'i Madagasikara, links=no, ; french: République de Madagascar), is an island country in the Indian Ocean, approximately off the coast of East Africa ...

, some outlying islands (

Nosy Be Nosy Be (formerly Nossi-bé and Nosse Be) is an island off the northwest coast of Madagascar. Nosy Be is Madagascar's largest and busiest tourist resort. It has an area of , and its population was 109,465 according to the provisional results of t ...

and the nearby islands;

Grande Glorieuse Grande means "large" or "great" in many of the Romance languages. It may also refer to: Places * Grande, Germany, a municipality in Germany *Grande Communications, a telecommunications firm based in Texas * Grande-Rivière (disambiguation) * Arr ...

) and the

Seychelles Seychelles (, ; ), officially the Republic of Seychelles (french: link=no, République des Seychelles; Creole: ''La Repiblik Sesel''), is an archipelagic state consisting of 115 islands in the Indian Ocean. Its capital and largest city, V ...

(

Cosmoledo Cosmoledo Atoll is an atoll of the Aldabra Group and belongs to the Outer Islands of the Seychelles, and is located southwest of the capital, Victoria, on Mahé Island. History The name ''Cosmoledo'' is said to honor a Portuguese navigator who ...

). This generally common lizard is found in a range of habitat types, including open and degraded humid forest at mid and low altitudes. It also occurs in plantations. On Cosmoledo, it occurs in open shrubland. This

oviparous Oviparous animals are animals that lay their eggs, with little or no other embryonic development within the mother. This is the reproductive method of most fish, amphibians, most reptiles, and all pterosaurs, dinosaurs (including birds), and ...

lizard grows to total length.

Evolutionary history

The family

shares the strongest evolutionary linkages to Asian and South American Species. However, the population on the island most likely originated from colonization by ancestors "rafting" from the African Mainland. Within the Island of Madagascar, the Malagasy Plated Lizards are denoted by two individual genera of

: 1. Tracheloptychus, which consists of 2 separate species that occupy the subarid south and south-west regions of the Island 2. Zonosaurus, which consists of 17 species occupy the majority of the biomes distributed throughout the Island. Originally, scientists concluded, based on morphological data, that the Zonosaurus was a sister to the Tracheloptychus genera. In order to determine the evolutionary line of the species of Gerrhosauridae on the Island, specimens representing the species that inhabited the Island were acquired and tissue samples were taken and DNA samples were taken and underwent PCR. From the information, the tree for the evolution pathway was then "inferred per gene and per type of gene," resulting in the following lineage as described by the below link containing a photo: http://ars.els-cdn.com/content/image/1-s2.0-S1055790313002534-gr2.jpg.

Subspecies

Populations on

and

are recognized as

subspecies In biological classification, subspecies is a rank below species, used for populations that live in different areas and vary in size, shape, or other physical characteristics (morphology), but that can successfully interbreed. Not all species ...

Z''onosaurus madagascariensis insulanus'' Brygoo, 1985.

Evolutionary history

Subspecies

References

Further reading