The desert plated lizard (''Gerrhosaurus skoogi'') is a reptile

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), ...

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found only 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 foun ...

to the northern

Namib Desert The Namib ( ; ) is a coastal desert in Southern Africa. According to the broadest definition, the Namib stretches for more than along the Atlantic coasts of Angola, Namibia, and northwest South Africa, extending southward from the Carunjamba Ri ...

Namibia Namibia, officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country on the west coast of Southern Africa. Its borders include the Atlantic Ocean to the west, Angola and Zambia to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south; in the no ...

and

Angola Angola, officially the Republic of Angola, is a country on the west-Central Africa, central coast of Southern Africa. It is the second-largest Portuguese-speaking world, Portuguese-speaking (Lusophone) country in both total area and List of c ...

. Also known as the sand plated lizard,
Lamb T, Meeker AM, :fr:Aaron Matthew Bauer, Bauer AM, Branch WR (2003). "On the systematic status of the desert plated lizard (''Angolosaurus skoogi'' ): phylogenetic inference from DNA sequence analysis of the African Gerrhosauridae". ''Biological Journal of the Linnean Society'' 78 (2): 253-261. it is diurnal.

Etymology

The

specific name Specific name may refer to: * in Database management systems, a system-assigned name that is unique within a particular database In taxonomy, either of these two meanings, each with its own set of rules: * Specific name (botany), the two-part (bino ...

, ''skoogi'', is in honor of Hilmer Nils Erik Skoog (1870–1927), who was Curator of the '' Götesborgs Naturhistoriska museum'' from 1904 to 1927.Beolens, Bo; Watkins, Michael; Grayson, Michael (2011). ''The Eponym Dictionary of Reptiles''. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. xiii + 296 pp. . (''Gerrhosaurus skoogi'', p. 245).

Taxonomy

In 1916

Andersson Andersson is a Swedish language surname, a form of the surname Anderson. ''Andersson'' is, if several spelling variants are included, the most common surname in Sweden.FitzSimons assigned the species to a new genus ''Angolosaurus''. Recent studies suggest that this

monotypic In biology, a monotypic taxon is a taxonomic group (taxon) that contains only one immediately subordinate taxon. A monotypic species is one that does not include subspecies or smaller, infraspecific taxa. In the case of genera, the term "unisp ...

genus Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family (taxonomy), family as used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In bino ...

is synonymous to ''

Gerrhosaurus ''Gerrhosaurus'' is a genus of lizards native to southern and eastern Africa. Habitat Species of ''Gerrhosaurus'' are found in dry, rocky semi-open habitats. Species and subspecies The following species and subspecies are recognized as being ...

'' and makes it

paraphyletic Paraphyly is a taxonomic term describing a grouping that consists of the grouping's last common ancestor and some but not all of its descendant lineages. The grouping is said to be paraphyletic ''with respect to'' the excluded subgroups. In co ...

; therefore ''A. skoogi'' was reclassified as ''Gerrhosaurus skoogi''.

Ecology

''Gerrhosaurus skoogi'' mostly eats plants, but it also forages for beetles and other small arthropods that live within the sand dunes that the lizard inhabits. ''G. skoogi'' is considered to be a sand-diving lizard and can move efficiently through

sand dunes A dune is a landform composed of wind- or water-driven sand. It typically takes the form of a mound, ridge, or hill. An area with dunes is called a dune system or a dune complex. A large dune complex is called a dune field, while broad, flat ...

Etymology

Taxonomy

Ecology

References

Further reading