Otocryptis wiegmanni. Photo by Akila De Silva from http://lazy-lizard-tales.blogspot.com/2012/01/year-of-dragon-amazing-agamids.html
A while back we had a post discussing the many times lizards have evolved dewlaps, and more recently our mystery lizard was a most anole-like agamid lizard, Sitana ponceriana. Above is a close relative of Sitana, Otocryptis wiegmanni, doing its best anole imitation. Really, someone needs to do a comparative anatomical study of all these dewlaps to see how similar they are in construction–I’m guessing pretty similar!
The photo comes from a cool website, The Lazy Lizard’s Tales, and this particular post is chockful of cool looking agamids
Professor of Biology and Director of the Living Earth Collaborative at Washington University in Saint Louis. I've spent my entire professional career studying anoles and have discovered that the more I learn about anoles, the more I realize I don't know.
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Daniel Scantlebury
Surely the MCZ has some specimens you (=an undergraduate minion) could examine?
Martha Munoz
That looks huge for a dewlap. I wonder if it’s an oddity or if Agamid dewlaps tend to be relatively larger than in anoles.
Ambika Kamath
Agamid dewlaps, or at least the Sitana ponticeriana dewlaps I’ve been working with for the last two weeks, are enormous relative to most anoles. And while they extend their dewlaps similarly to anoles, they often don’t retract them completely after displaying. That could suggest either a different construction or different utilization, but it’s a striking difference between the taxa.
Rich Glor
The photo of Phrynocephalus displaying on the page you referenced is very cool.