14 DAY TRIAL // A recent paper in the journal ZooKeys describes three lizard species that wildlife researchers discovered not long ago in the forests growing on the slopes of the Andes in Peru and Ecuador.
The lizards, one of which is pictured next to this article, sport colorful scales on their body, which is why the specialists who found them say that they kind of, sort of look like dragons.
The three newly discovered species belong to a genus that encompasses only twelve other such creatures and whose official name is Enyalioides, EurekAlert informs.
These forest dwellers, sometimes referred to as wood lizards, are known to be active during daytime and to enjoy life in rainforests such as the ones in the Amazon basin or in cloud forests like the ones in the Andes.
Interestingly, about half of the Enyalioides species now known to science have been discovered in recent years. Thus, in 2006, merely seven were documented by wildlife researchers.
“More than half of the diversity of a group of large, dragon-looking reptiles from South America has been discovered in recent years,” specialist Omar Torres-Carvajal said in a statement.
All things considered, chances are many other such dragon-like lizard species are lurking in the wilderness, just waiting to be discovered.