Endangered
Furcifer nicosiai
Furcifer nicosiai
Furcifer nicosiai is a chameleon in the family Chamaeleonidae, recorded as Endangered and tied to Madagascar.
Appearance
Furcifer nicosiai is relatively large, and has a high parietal crest (a central ridge down the front of the casque), but lacks appendages on its snout (rostrum). It features canthi rostrales that are separated, a poorly developed gular crest (a row of small spines running down the centre of the throat), a distinctive rostral profile, a complete ventral crest (a row of small conical scales extending down the centre of the belly) and a poorly developed dorsal crest extending from the neck region to the tail. Furcifer nicosiai can be distinguished from F. Verrucosus by its smaller size, different colour patterns, and the orientation of its hemipenis.
Range and habitat
Furcifer nicosiai is found in the limestone outcrops in a small area of west Madagascar, in the Melaky Region, north of the Manambolo River. It has only been found in the Tsingy de Bemaraha National Park (Parc National Tsingy de Bemaraha) though there is a possibility that it may also be found further north. The size of the park is 1,566 square kilometres (605 square miles), although it is not fully covered with forest habitat suitable for this species.
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
Described as new to science in 1999, it was ranked as an endangered species by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
Furcifer nicosiai 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 Furcifer nicosiai, Wikidata item Q3090999. 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.
