Hola students, it’s your friendly neighborhood Wildlife Biologist checking in one last time with my favorite field note yet! Now, I wouldn’t be much of a Herpetologist if I didn’t feature a reptile or amphibian for this note, so you guessed it, my friends, we are going to talk about a lizard today. This species of lizard is special because it has adapted to living in the higher altitude areas of Costa Rica, where the temperatures are cooler than the lowlands (they can be found in the lowlands too). The species of lizard we are going to talk about is the Green Spiny Lizard (Sceloporus malachiticus), which is also called Emerald Swifts.
These lizards are sexually dimorphic: does anyone know what that means? In case you don’t know, it means that males and females have differences in the way they look, which makes it easier to tell them apart. In the case of these lizards, the males are bright emerald green with different shades of blues and greens on their tails and bellies. Females are mostly gray, brown or a mix of both, with shades of light green mixed in as well. Males are slightly smaller at around two to three inches in length and females are larger around three to four and a half inches long. They both possess sharply pointed scales that act as a suit of armor to protect them from predators.
