Cope's arboreal alligator lizard (''Abronia aurita'') is a species of

lizard Lizard is the common name used for all Squamata, squamate reptiles other than snakes (and to a lesser extent amphisbaenians), encompassing over 7,000 species, ranging across all continents except Antarctica, as well as most Island#Oceanic isla ...

found in two isolated locations in

Guatemala Guatemala, officially the Republic of Guatemala, is a country in Central America. It is bordered to the north and west by Mexico, to the northeast by Belize, to the east by Honduras, and to the southeast by El Salvador. It is hydrologically b ...

, one in the

Alta Verapaz Department Alta Verapaz () is a department in the north central part of Guatemala. The capital and chief city of the department is Cobán. Verapaz is bordered to the north by El Petén, to the east by Izabal, to the south by Zacapa, El Progreso, an ...

and one in the Jalapa Department. These lizard are found only in high altitudes of 2,000 to 2,600 feet above sea level, on the west and south sides of the mountain ranges. This lizard is one of 28 species of alligator lizards, most being

arboreal Arboreal locomotion is the locomotion of animals in trees. In habitats in which trees are present, animals have evolved to move in them. Some animals may scale trees only occasionally (scansorial), but others are exclusively arboreal. The hab ...

, meaning they live in trees. These omnivores are considered endangered because of their small population size and they face extinction due to habitat degradation and from pressures of the pet trade.

Distribution and habitat

Cope's arboreal alligator lizard, also known as ''Abronia aurita'', is a species of alligator lizard found only in roughly 400 square

kilometer The kilometre ( SI symbol: km; or ), spelt kilometer in American and Philippine English, is a unit of length in the International System of Units (SI), equal to one thousand metres (kilo- being the SI prefix for ). It is the preferred mea ...

s of Guatemala. Specifically, the only suitable habitat for this

species A species () is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate sexes or mating types can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction. It is the basic unit of Taxonomy (biology), ...

is between 2,000 and 2,600 feet above

sea level Mean sea level (MSL, often shortened to sea level) is an mean, average surface level of one or more among Earth's coastal Body of water, bodies of water from which heights such as elevation may be measured. The global MSL is a type of vertical ...

on the

west West is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sun sets on the Earth. Etymology The word "west" is a Germanic word passed into some Romance langu ...

and

south South is one of the cardinal directions or compass points. The direction is the opposite of north and is perpendicular to both west and east. Etymology The word ''south'' comes from Old English ''sūþ'', from earlier Proto-Germanic ''*sunþa ...

sides of Sierra de Xucaneb in the Department of Alta Verapaz. These species are considered

, meaning they live in trees. They prefer to make their homes in the trunks of decaying, large trees, found in

Oak An oak is a hardwood tree or shrub in the genus ''Quercus'' of the beech family. They have spirally arranged leaves, often with lobed edges, and a nut called an acorn, borne within a cup. The genus is widely distributed in the Northern Hemisp ...

Pine A pine is any conifer tree or shrub in the genus ''Pinus'' () of the family Pinaceae. ''Pinus'' is the sole genus in the subfamily Pinoideae. ''World Flora Online'' accepts 134 species-rank taxa (119 species and 15 nothospecies) of pines as cu ...

forests. High tree density is considered optimal for these creatures as this ensures adequate habitat opportunities and resource abundance. Trees that are covered with growth such as

moss Mosses are small, non-vascular plant, non-vascular flowerless plants in the taxonomic phylum, division Bryophyta (, ) ''sensu stricto''. Bryophyta (''sensu lato'', Wilhelm Philippe Schimper, Schimp. 1879) may also refer to the parent group bryo ...

es,

fern The ferns (Polypodiopsida or Polypodiophyta) are a group of vascular plants (plants with xylem and phloem) that reproduce via spores and have neither seeds nor flowers. They differ from mosses by being vascular, i.e., having specialized tissue ...

s or bromeliads serve as their main habitat source as these additions contribute toward important factors in insulation and moisture control.

Physical characteristics

Typical

snout A snout is the protruding portion of an animal's face, consisting of its nose, mouth, and jaw. In many animals, the structure is called a muzzle, Rostrum (anatomy), rostrum, beak or proboscis. The wet furless surface around the nostrils of the n ...

to vent length will fall within the range of 7.8 to 18.4 cm, with the length of the

tail The tail is the elongated section at the rear end of a bilaterian animal's body; in general, the term refers to a distinct, flexible appendage extending backwards from the midline of the torso. In vertebrate animals that evolution, evolved to los ...

being roughly twice as long as the body. These creatures are covered with scales, the scales located on their

stomach The stomach is a muscular, hollow organ in the upper gastrointestinal tract of Human, humans and many other animals, including several invertebrates. The Ancient Greek name for the stomach is ''gaster'' which is used as ''gastric'' in medical t ...

being slightly keeled while the other scales on their body remain flat. They have a general green color around their body but shades vary due to environmental variation and

season A season is a division of the year based on changes in weather, ecology, and the number of daylight hours in a given region. On Earth, seasons are the result of the axial parallelism of Earth's axial tilt, tilted orbit around the Sun. In temperat ...

. All alligator lizards have yellow

eye An eye is a sensory organ that allows an organism to perceive visual information. It detects light and converts it into electro-chemical impulses in neurons (neurones). It is part of an organism's visual system. In higher organisms, the ey ...

s, with a long, slender, forked tongue. ''A. aurita'' can be distinguished from other similar alligator lizards by having a slightly more pale green color on their scales, accompanied by black molting around the edges. One way you can tell the difference between the male and the female are by head shape, the

male Male (Planet symbols, symbol: ♂) is the sex of an organism that produces the gamete (sex cell) known as sperm, which fuses with the larger female gamete, or Egg cell, ovum, in the process of fertilisation. A male organism cannot sexual repro ...

will sometimes have a slightly broader head than the

female An organism's sex is female ( symbol: ♀) if it produces the ovum (egg cell), the type of gamete (sex cell) that fuses with the male gamete (sperm cell) during sexual reproduction. A female has larger gametes than a male. Females and ...

. In addition, adult males can be distinguished as having orange coloration on the posterior third portion of the scales on the dorsal side of their head. However, most of these distinctions are only noticed by a professional and it can be tricky for amateurs to tell the two sexes apart.

Behavior

This lizard is usually slow moving, but it is typical for them to drop to the ground when disturbed, followed by them quickly escaping to a safe environment if they feel threatened. Although they can survive in temperatures that range as far as 40 to 90 ̊F, they will move considerably slower when their environment is below 50 ̊F. In these colder temperatures, these lizards will also den together in rotten tree trunks and under

to conserve warmth and energy. They will be most active when temperatures lie in the range of 75 to 80 ̊F and will often be seen sunbathing and searching for food in the hours of late morning. ''A. aurita'' have also reported to be calm in captivity, if properly cared for. They can also be prone to biting if handled aggressively or not fed at regular intervals. If their containment is kept outside of their optimal temperature zone, they will often hide in their artificial shelters, trying to conserve energy or hide from the light.

Diet

''A. aurita'' are primarily omnivores, but can live on either insects or plants for long periods of time. In times of optimal conditions, they will often prefer to forage for abundant insects such as

crickets Crickets are orthopteran insects which are related to bush crickets and more distantly, to grasshoppers. In older literature, such as Imms,Imms AD, rev. Richards OW & Davies RG (1970) ''A General Textbook of Entomology'' 9th Ed. Methuen 886 ...

and

grasshoppers Grasshoppers are a group of insects belonging to the suborder Caelifera. They are amongst what are possibly the most ancient living groups of chewing herbivorous insects, dating back to the early Triassic around 250 million years ago. Grassh ...

as well as other

invertebrates Invertebrates are animals that neither develop nor retain a vertebral column (commonly known as a ''spine'' or ''backbone''), which evolved from the notochord. It is a paraphyletic grouping including all animals excluding the chordate subphylum ...

such as

caterpillars Caterpillars ( ) are the larval stage of members of the order Lepidoptera (the insect order comprising butterflies and moths). As with most common names, the application of the word is arbitrary, since the larvae of sawflies (suborder Sym ...

snails A snail is a shelled gastropod. The name is most often applied to land snails, terrestrial molluscs, terrestrial pulmonate gastropod molluscs. However, the common name ''snail'' is also used for most of the members of the molluscan class Gas ...

spiders Spiders (order Araneae) are air-breathing arthropods that have eight limbs, chelicerae with fangs generally able to inject venom, and spinnerets that extrude silk. They are the largest order of arachnids and rank seventh in total species di ...

and

mealworms Mealworms are the larval form of the yellow mealworm beetle, ''Tenebrio molitor'', a species of darkling beetle. The yellow mealworm beetle prefers a warmer climate and higher humidity. Male mealworm beetles release a sex pheromone to attr ...

. In addition, alligator lizards also rely on eating

bromeliad The Bromeliaceae (the bromeliads) are a Family (biology), family of monocot flowering plants of about 80 genera and 3700 known species, native mainly to the Tropics, tropical Americas, with several species found in the American subtropics and on ...

s, which serve as a vital source of energy when insect abundance depletes. Because of this, presence of bromeliads growing on and around their habitat is an important factor when determining their immediate habitat location.

Reproduction and lifecycle

It typically takes Cope's arboreal alligator lizards until the second reproductive season for them to be large and sexually mature enough to reproduce. These lizards are

viviparous In animals, viviparity is development of the embryo inside the body of the mother, with the maternal circulation providing for the metabolic needs of the embryo's development, until the mother gives birth to a fully or partially developed juve ...

(they do not lay eggs like many other

reptiles Reptiles, as commonly defined, are a group of tetrapods with an ectothermic metabolism and Amniotic egg, amniotic development. Living traditional reptiles comprise four Order (biology), orders: Testudines, Crocodilia, Squamata, and Rhynchocepha ...

), but will give birth to live pups. The mating ritual of this alligator lizard is similar to other lizards, which will begin with the male lizard biting the head of the female in a display of his strength and fitness for mating. They will remain in this position until the female succumbs to the male and allows him to mate with her. This embrace could last for several hours. Each female will only give birth to one litter per year, of between 7 and 14 babies per litter. The breeding season for this species can be as broad as July to November with the newborns being delivered between the months of March to July. The

gestation period In mammals, pregnancy is the period of reproduction during which a female carries one or more live offspring from implantation in the uterus through gestation. It begins when a fertilized zygote implants in the female's uterus, and ends once i ...

for this lizard is between 6 and 8 months, during which time the female will gain weight and develop what is known as “chalk sacs” on her jowls as a

calcium Calcium is a chemical element; it has symbol Ca and atomic number 20. As an alkaline earth metal, calcium is a reactive metal that forms a dark oxide-nitride layer when exposed to air. Its physical and chemical properties are most similar to it ...

supply. After birth, she does not provide any

postnatal The postpartum (or postnatal) period begins after childbirth and is typically considered to last for six to eight weeks. There are three distinct phases of the postnatal period; the acute phase, lasting for six to twelve hours after birth; the ...

care to her young. Once born, these lizards do not need to rely on a limited diet, but can begin consuming the same material as their adult counterparts.

Threats

The major threat to biodiversity for the Cope's arboreal alligator lizard is determined by the

IUCN Red List The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species, also known as the IUCN Red List or Red Data Book, founded in 1964, is an inventory of the global conservation status and extinction risk of biological ...

to be the destruction of their habitat. Degradation and fragmentation of their suitable habitat has occurred as a side effect from construction, agricultural formation, and coal mining, as these activities require deforestation in these areas. These lizards are also frequently used in the pet trade, taking them from their native habitats and distributing them around the globe, which also depletes their native population sizes. Their native geographic range in Guatemala is not currently under protection for conservation or restoration efforts.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q2821949 Abronia Reptiles of Guatemala Reptiles described in 1869 Taxa named by Edward Drinker Cope