Endangered
Brookesia minima
Brookesia minima
Brookesia minima, (common names of that include the dwarf chameleon, the Madagascar dwarf chameleon, the minute leaf chameleon, and the Nosy Be pygmy leaf chameleon), is a diminutive chameleon that was regarded as the smallest lizard of the Chamaeleonidae until a smaller species, Brookesia nana, was described in 2021.
Appearance
It is coloured light grey on the head, back and tail, although the tail becomes orange then yellowish towards the tip. The sides of the body are brown, occasionally interrupted by dark brown spots, and the limbs are almost entirely dark brown. Spotted patterning appears to be a stress colouration, and unstressed individuals have a more or less uniform dark brown body, apart from a beige area in front of the eyes (1).
B. Minima is the third-smallest lizard ever described.
The maximum total length is 3.4 cm (1.3 in) for females and 2.8 cm (1.1 in) for males.
Introduction Brookesia minima, (common names of that include the dwarf chameleon, the Madagascar dwarf chameleon, the minute leaf chameleon, and the Nosy Be pygmy leaf chameleon), is a diminutive chameleon that was regarded as the smallest lizard of the Chamaeleonidae until a smaller species, Brookesia nana, was described in 2021.
Range and habitat
B. Minima is endemic to Nosy Be, an island located just off the northwest coast of Madagascar, but has extralimital distribution to Manongarivo Reserve on Madagascar's northwest coast. B. Minima is native to the rain forests of its native island. It has a relatively active habit for a chameleon and likes moving around in the low branches and leaf litter of its native rain forests.
Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.
Habits
A chameleon rocks, aims, and shoots the tongue. Many dwarf species live in low vegetation or leaf litter, not only in high canopy.
In crisis
Brookesia minima is Endangered on this catalog because that is the IUCN category stored on Wikidata. Confirm the official criteria and any later count on iucnredlist.org.
Sources
Written for this catalog from the English Wikipedia article on Brookesia minima, Wikidata item Q2022984. Family and order context is original field-guide writing about the group, not a copied assessment of this one species. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA. Not an IUCN assessment. Counts, when quoted, can change — confirm them on the recovery programme and on iucnredlist.org.
