Acanthosaura armata (Peninsular Horned Tree Lizard)
The common name of this Agamid Lizard in English is commonly called Peninsular Horned Tree Lizard, Armored Pricklenape, Armored Tree Dragon, Greater Spiny Lizard and Thai name called กิ้งก่าเขาหนามยาว (Ging-gaa Kao Naam Yaow).
กิ้งก่าเขาหนามยาว : Acanthosaura armata (Gray, 1827)
Acanthosaura armata is a species of the Tree Dragon Lizard Genus (Acanthosaura) within the Subfamily Draconinae, in the Agamid Lizard Family (Agamidae), Superfamily Iguania, in the Lizard and Snake Order (Squamata), in the Reptile Class (Reptilia), in the Chordate Phylum (Chordata) in the Animal Kingdom (Animalia).
Published in Hardwicke, Thomas & Gray, J.E. A synopsis of the species of saurian reptiles, collected in India by Major-General Hardwicke. Zoological Journal, London 3: 213-229. (1827).
Geographic Range
This species ranges from southern Thailand south of the Isthmus of Kra, southward through Peninsular Malaysia (including the Seribuat Archipelago, where it is found on Pulau Aur and Pulau Tioman - Grismer 2011b) to Singapore, south-central Sumatra (Manthey 2008, Taylor 1963) and to Pulau Siantan of the Anambas Archipelago in Indonesia (Leong et al. 2002, Grismer 2011a).
A single specimen collected in 1964 was reported from Hainan, representing the first record for China, by Koshikawa (1982).
Ananjeva et al. (2011), in a review of Chinese agamid lizards, were not able to confirm the presence of this species in China and this country has not been included in the distribution provided by recent authors (Grismer 2011a, Chan-ard et al. 2015).
This record is now believed to be a misidentified specimen of Acanthosaura lepidogaster (L.J. Wang pers. comm. 2018).
Habitat and Ecology
This species is found in hilly or mountainous areas within primary and old secondary forest up to 810 m asl (Grismer et al. 2011a), including lowland and hill dipterocarp forests as well as shrubby vegetation in lowland areas on floodplains and occasionally in forest edge habitats (Diong et al. 1995, Grismer 2011a).
Lim et al. (2008) reported the species from peat swamps, but it has not been found in these habitats in surveys by L. Grismer and E. Quah (E. Quah pers. comm. 2017).
It is a diurnal species commonly observed while perched on the trunks of both small and large trees with its forelimbs partially or fully extended and facing head-up (Diong et al. 1995). It is less commonly found on branches and often found in male-female pairs.
According to Boulenger (1912) it feeds on earthworms that it digs out of the ground, and it has been reported to feed on other invertebrates (Zhao et al. 1999). It is believed to breed year-round (Grismer 2011a). Clutches contain 12–16 eggs, and young hatch after 191–193 days. (Zhao et al. 1999).
Type locality: Singapore
This species is occasionally found in the pet trade and is of limited commercial value (L. Grismer and E. Quah pers. comm. 2017).
Synonym
- Agama armata John Edward Gray in Gray & Thomas Hardwicke (1827)
- Lophyurus armatus André Marie Constant Duméril & Gabriel Bibron (1837)
- Gonyocephalus (Acanthosaurus) armatus Leopold Fitzinger (1843)
- Acanthosaura armata John Edward Gray (1845)
- Acanthosaura armata Albert Charles Lewis Günther (1864)
- Acanthosaura armata George Albert Boulenger (1885)
- Acanthosaura armata Nelly de Rooij (1915)
- Goniocephalus armatus armatus Malcolm Arthur Smith (1935)
- Acanthosaura armata Edward Harrison Taylor (1963)
- Goniocephalus armatus John Roscoe Hendrickson (1966)
- Acanthosaura armata Heinz Wermuth (1967)
- Acanthosaura armata Ulrich Manthey & Wolfgang Grossmann (1997)
- Acanthosaura armata Merel J. Cox et al. (1998)
- Acanthosaura armata Ulrich Manthey & Norbert Schuster (1999)
- Acanthosaura armata Larry Lee Grismer (2011)