Endangered
Tympanocryptis pinguicolla
Tympanocryptis pinguicolla
Tympanocryptis pinguicolla is a lizard or snake in the family Agamidae, recorded as Endangered and tied to Australia.
Appearance
The body is covered in large, spiky scales.
Adults are about 15 centimetres (5.9 in) in length.
Range and habitat
T. Pinguicolla is endemic to the state of Victoria in southeastern Australia. Very little of this habitat remains in Victoria due to the heavy degradation and conversion of this habitat in the past, that has contributed to the species' endangerment and assumed extinction.
A 2019 study suggested that T. Pinguicolla may have become extinct, due to the destruction of most of its habitat and the last sighting of the species being made in 1969 in the area of Geelong. This would have made it the first known reptilian extinction on the Australian mainland in modern times. Colossal Biosciences and Zoos Victoria began a conservation project in October 2023 to preserve the species as well as sequence its genome.
Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.
In crisis
Before 2023 T. Pinguicolla was classified as Endangered on the IUCN Red List, but this was based on the former view that classified the Canberra, Cooma, and Bathurst populations under T. Pinguicolla. Hope nonetheless remained that the species was still extant, on the basis of unconfirmed sightings during surveys from 1988–1990. Even though later searches found nothing, not all of the remaining grasslands in the area were intensively surveyed and the species is small and hard to detect.
In January 2023, ecologists Emi Arnold and Pat Monarca rediscovered an individual. In June 2023, the rediscovery of the Victorian species was announced, confirming its continued existence after several months of fieldwork managed to find remaining individuals of the species, that are now subject to a rebreeding programme at Melbourne Zoo.
Tympanocryptis pinguicolla 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 Tympanocryptis pinguicolla, Wikidata item Q3546069. 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.
