Calotes nigrilabris

Appearance

Mid body scale rows are 42–50. Ventrals are larger than dorsals. Dorsum is green unpatterned or with black edged, cream transverse bars or eye-like spots.

Range and habitat

A submontane and montane species, found at elevations of 1,000 m (3,300 ft) and above. This species is tolerably common at localities such as Nuwara Eliya, Pattipola, Ohiya, Hakgala Strict Nature Reserve, Horton Plains National Park, Peak Wilderness Sanctuary, Kandapola, Ragala, Labukele, Knuckles, Pidurutalagala, Kuda Oya, Labugolla Calotes nigrilabris, the black-cheek lizard, is an agamid species endemic to Sri Lanka. It can be distinguished easily from painted-lipped lizard by having black bar on mouth rather than white or orange bar.In Sinhalese language, it is known as "Kalu Kopul Katussa - කළු කොපුල් කටුස්සා".

Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.

Diet and breeding

In Horton Plains C. Nigrilabris can be found residing on the gorse bushes (Ulex europeus) and Rhododendron leaves to hunt the insect prey (particularly bees) that gets attracted to the flowers. Two breeding seasons can be observed from November–December and February to March.

Hatchlings can be observed following the egg laying in the breeding months after an approximate two months of incubation.

In crisis

Calotes nigrilabris 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 Calotes nigrilabris, Wikidata item Q2934383. 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.