The crested chameleon, ''Trioceros cristatus'', is a species of chameleon

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found els ...

to Africa. The species was first described by Samuel Stutchbury in 1837.

Distribution and habitat

The crested chameleon can be found in

Bioko Bioko (; historically Fernando Po; bvb, Ëtulá Ëria) is an island off the west coast of Africa and the northernmost part of Equatorial Guinea. Its population was 335,048 at the 2015 census and it covers an area of . The island is located of ...

, the Republic of Equatorial Guinea, the

Republic of Cameroon Cameroon (; french: Cameroun, ff, Kamerun), officially the Republic of Cameroon (french: République du Cameroun, links=no), is a country in west-central Africa. It is bordered by Nigeria to the west and north; Chad to the northeast; the C ...

, the

Central African Republic The Central African Republic (CAR; ; , RCA; , or , ) is a landlocked country in Central Africa. It is bordered by Chad to the north, Sudan to the northeast, South Sudan to the southeast, the DR Congo to the south, the Republic of the C ...

, the

Democratic Republic of the Congo The Democratic Republic of the Congo (french: République démocratique du Congo (RDC), colloquially "La RDC" ), informally Congo-Kinshasa, DR Congo, the DRC, the DROC, or the Congo, and formerly and also colloquially Zaire, is a country in ...

, the Republic of the Congo, the Gabonese Republic, the

Federal Republic of Nigeria Nigeria ( ), , ig, Naìjíríyà, yo, Nàìjíríà, pcm, Naijá , ff, Naajeeriya, kcg, Naijeriya officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a country in West Africa. It is situated between the Sahel to the north and the Gulf of G ...

, the

Republic of Ghana Ghana (; tw, Gaana, ee, Gana), officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country in West Africa. It abuts the Gulf of Guinea and the Atlantic Ocean to the south, sharing borders with Ivory Coast in the west, Burkina Faso in the north, and Tog ...

and the République Togolaise (Republic Togo). It has a geological type locality of the Gabonese Republic. It is found at an altitude between above

mean sea level There are several kinds of mean in mathematics, especially in statistics. Each mean serves to summarize a given group of data, often to better understand the overall value ( magnitude and sign) of a given data set. For a data set, the '' ari ...

, and over an area of . The IUCN (IUCN) have classed ''Trioceros cristatus'' as

Least Concern A least-concern species is a species that has been categorized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as evaluated as not being a focus of species conservation because the specific species is still plentiful in the wild. Th ...

Description

The female is larger than the male. The total length of a female is , and the total for a male is . Females lay between 11 and 14 eggs, although a

clutch A clutch is a mechanical device that engages and disengages power transmission, especially from a drive shaft to a driven shaft. In the simplest application, clutches connect and disconnect two rotating shafts (drive shafts or line shafts ...

of 37 was once found.

Taxonomy

The crested chameleon was first described by Stutchbury in 1837. In 1865, Gray described it as the ''Pterosaurus cristatus''. Werner described it as the ''Chamaeleon cristatus'' in 1911, and Mertens described it in 1966 as ''Chamaeleo cristatus''. Klaver and Böhme described it as ''Chamaeleo (Trioceros) cristatus'' in 1986, and Necas described it under the same name in 1999. The species was most recently described by Tilbury and Tolley in 2009 as ''Trioceros cristatus''.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q684098 Trioceros Reptiles described in 1837 Taxa named by Samuel Stutchbury