Encounter - Draco dussumieri, master of camouflage

I came across this miracle of nature towards the fag end of my supposedly "spend-time-with-family" trip to BR Hills. At the Jungle Lodges camp, I was about to return to my room after breakfast when our safari jeep driver called out to me. He pointed to something on a tree, saying it was a Southern Flying Lizard (Draco dussumieri).

Can you spot the lizard?

Well, I looked at four tree trunks over and over for a couple of minutes before I could spot it. There it sat on the tree trunk closest to me, and there was absolutely no way I would have spotted it had it not been pointed out. 


On the dull, ash-brown coloured trunk, interspersed with mottled lichen patches, I could make out a basilisk foot... As my eyes traced out the borders, I could slowly spot the other leg, the body and the tail. The head was the toughest to decipher from the background.

And now?

I changed my vantage point and tried a lateral perspective but I was amazed to find that so pressed was the lizard to the trunk that barely an outline was visible that would betray its presence. I waited to see if it would display its marvellous tree-to-tree glide, without luck. But in the end I considered myself lucky to have had such a good look at this amazing reptile!


Text and photos by Sandeep Somasekharan


Further reading:
Southern Flying Lizard on Wikipedia and the Reptile Database