Desert plated lizard
species of reptile
The desert plated lizard (Gerrhosaurus skoogi) is a reptile species endemic to the northern Namib Desert in Namibia and Angola. Also known as the sand plated lizard, It is diurnal.
Etymology
The specific name, skoogi, is in honor of Hilmer Nils Erik Skoog (1870–1927), who was Curator of the Götesborgs Naturhistoriska museum from 1904 to 1927.
Taxonomy
In 1916 Andersson described this lizard as a new species, naming it Gerrhosaurus skoogi. In 1953 FitzSimons assigned the species to a new genus Angolosaurus. Recent studies suggest that this monotypic genus is synonymous to Gerrhosaurus and makes it paraphyletic; therefore A. skoogi was reclassified as Gerrhosaurus skoogi.
Ecology
Gerrhosaurus skoogi mostly eats plants, but it also forages for beetles and other small arthropods that live within the sand dunes that the lizard inhabits. G. skoogi is considered to be a sand-diving lizard and can move efficiently through sand dunes.
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This entry incorporates text from “Desert plated lizard” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.