Lizards are beautiful. They are have a crucial role to play in balancing the ecosystem. Some humans may find them to be scary or creepy. Their mere sight can evoke disgust or fright. Regardless, their role is extremely important to maintain the delicate equilibrium.
Though many of us are familiar with lizards found in urban landscapes, a plethora of lizards are found in the wild. Agamid Lizards, a specific species widely found in India’s jungles, is a classic example.
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has listed many of the 48 agamids species found worldwide as endangered. There are around twenty types of Agamid lizards in India. However, not much data is available in India about Indian Agamid Lizards.
As the scholar Dilip Venugopal of the U.S.Food and Drug Administration puts it in his widely cited paper, Agamid Lizards of India: Emphasis on Distribution and Conservation Status of Endemic and Rare Species, Agamids, ‘are morphologically and ecologically diverse, inhabiting varied range of altitudes and habitats.’
They can be found in the Himalayas as well as in the coastal regions. High species diversity of Indian agamids corresponds to regions with evergreen forests, particularly the Himalayas extending in the north-east portions of India (15 species), north eastern states (13 species) and the Western Ghats (14 species).
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