Little Monster in my Garden
One of the many wondrous ‘side effects’ when living a life close to Nature and focused on a Green Environment is that one observes also the little things… and here I was totally blown away by this little monster in my garden: a baby blue lizard … in more scientific terms an “Agama hispida”, i.e. a member of the Agamidae family, also called “Koggelmander” in South Africa.
I had come across a beautiful male a few years ago… and never saw it again. And now this tiny and extremely fast and wizzy creature with finely designed hands and toes, as long as my small finger! Just too beautiful!
So there has to be a female around as well! As they are less colorful than the males, they are more difficult to spot. Being oviparous, they lay 7-10 eggs… and hopefully some of this lot survived! Being very freedom-loving it’s very special to have them around.
Little Monster in my GardenIt was quite hectic to capture this little monster in my garden; I guess only its own curiosity made it sit for some instants to watch me – before it would zoom-fly-jump-squirrel away at lightning speed and suddenly pop up at a totally different spot – or disappear.
South Africa is home to over 200 lizard species, making it the richest and most spectacular area for lizard diversity in continental Africa. There are 8 different families, of which the Agamids are one – quite closely related to the chameleons… of which we used to have some very tame ones – coming down the trees onto our hands – until they suddenly disappeared.
Hopefully we see more of these little monsters popping up here…
