Endangered
West Usambara Two-horned Chameleon
Kinyongia multituberculata
The West Usambara two-horned chameleon or West Usambara blade-horned chameleon is a chameleon endemic to the West Usambara Mountains of Tanzania.
Appearance
Compared to similar close relatives, the spines on the ridge of the back (dorsal crest) of adults of both sexes extend further back, well onto or even beyond the mid-back (in others they are limited to the part nearest the head or absent).
K. Multituberculata is one of the larger species in the genus Kinyongia at up to 34 cm (13 in) in total length, with the tail making up more than half of that.
Range and habitat
The West Usambara two-horned chameleon or West Usambara blade-horned chameleon is a chameleon endemic to the West Usambara Mountains of Tanzania. Until 2008, it was generally confused with Fischer's chameleon (K. Fischeri), that is not found in the Usambara Mountains. None of its close relatives occur in the same range as K. Multituberculata, but K. Matschiei and K. Vosseleri are restricted to the East Usambaras.
The habitat is highly fragmented, and better protection of forest reserves is needed.
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
West Usambara Two-horned Chameleon 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 West Usambara Two-horned Chameleon, Wikidata item Q427185. 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.
