Mlanje Mountain chameleon

Mlanje Mountain chameleon
Not evaluated (IUCN 3.1)
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Reptilia
Order: Squamata
Suborder: Lacertilia
Family: Chamaeleonidae
Subfamily: Chamaeleoninae
Genus: Nadzikambia
Species: N. mlanjensis
Binomial name
Nadzikambia mlanjensis
(Broadley, 1965)
Synonyms
  • Bradypodion mlanjense
  • Chamaeleo mlanjense
  • Nadzikambia mlanjense

The Mlanje Mountain chameleon, Nadzikambia mlanjensis, is one of two species in the genus Nadzikambia (derived from the species' name in Chichewa). It is a plesiomorphic, small chameleon from the Ruo Gorge forest on Mount Mulanje in Malawi.

Initially placed into Chamaeleo, it was for some time moved to the South African dwarf chameleons (Bradypodion) by some (Klaver & Böhme, 1986). This was criticized because plesiomorphies cannot be used to define clades, and eventually turned out to be in error.[1]

References

  1. Tolley, Krystal A.; Tilbury, Colin R. & Branch, William R. (2004): Phylogenetics of the southern African dwarf chameleons, Bradypodion (Squamata: Chamaeleonidae). Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 30: 354–365. doi:10.1016/S1055-7903(03)00211-2 PDF fulltext
This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Saturday, February 07, 2015. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.