In 1891, Italian explorer Elio Modigliani discovered the nose-horned lizard in the forests of Indonesia. The striking lizard is notable for its horn that protrudes from its nose. It got its taxonomic description Harpesaurus modiglianii in 1933, a year after the death of the Italian Jewish scientist who discovered it.
That was the first and only nose-horned lizard ever recorded as there were no accounts of anyone finding another such lizard according to historical records. But in June 2018, a living version of a luminous green nose-horned lizard was found again for the first time nearly 130 years later in North Sumatra, Indonesia, ScienceNews reported.
Bataks, the indigenous people living in the region, have wooden arts and folktales, which shows that the lizard has a special place in the people's mythology. But there were no reports about this specie at all.
Modigliani was the son of a Florentine banker who became a zoologist, botanist, and anthropologist who frequently visits several islands in Indonesia's western coast between 1886 and 1894. Aside from the nose-horned lizard, there were also five more species of reptile and one amphibian named after him.
Science News: A nose-horned dragon lizard lost to science for over 100 years has been found. Indonesia’s Modigliani’s lizards are bright green but can shift shades like a chameleon https://t.co/rhocSLhYwy — Dinah Parums (@DinahParums) June 9, 2020
Who's That Dragon Lizard?
Nearly 130 years have passed since its discovery; the nose-horned lizard was once again spotted by independent wildlife biologist Chairunas Adha Putra. He was conducting a bird survey in a mountainous region in Lake Toba, North Sumatra, Indonesia, when he found a "dead lizard with interesting morphological features, but he wasn't sure what it was."
He immediately called herpetologist, Thasun Amarasinghe, of the University of Indonesia in Depok, who later asked the biologist to send the specimen to Jakarta. Amarasinghe suspected that it could be Modigliani's nose-horned dragon lizard since it is the only of its kind found in Sumatra.
Amarasinghe asked Putra to go back to where he had found it and see if there was a living population. It took him five days searching the area but was able to find what he was looking for. There, lying on a low bench, most likely sleeping, is the live version of the nose-horned lizard.
Putra took pictures of the lizard and measured the size and shape of its body parts. He also observed its behavior before releasing it on the same night that he found the lizard.
Luminous Green Nose-horned Dragon Lizard
Amarasinghe compared the live version with the one discovered 130 years ago and found that they are one, although the Genoa museum's dead specimen is pale blue due to preservation.
Its natural color is now known to be mostly luminous green. But it can also camouflage and is similar to the tree-dwelling behavior of African mountain chameleons.
They belong to the Agamidae family of lizards or known as the dragon lizards, which includes the bearded dragons. These lizards are hard to study as they live in small, hard-to-access areas. Currently, 30 dragon lizards have never been seen since they are first described, and 19 species are only known based on a single specimen, says herpetologist Shai Meri of Tel Aviv University.
The discovery of the nose-horned lizard gave hope for its conservation as before its rediscovery, and no one knows where it lives or whether it was still alive or have gone extinct.
