Oriental Garden Lizard

Description:

The head has a bony casque, ornamented with crests or tubercles. A separation between the eyes, the interorbital septum, is present. Pre-maxillary extremely small, edentulous; orbit bony all round, the pre- and post-frontals often joining to form a supraorbital roof; a pair of supra-nasal fontanelles, bordered by the nasals, the prefrontals, and the frontal; the latter bone single; parietal single, often much narrowed and compressed, forming a crest, and meeting posteriorly the extremities of the squamosals. Dentition acrodont; teeth compressed, triangular, more or less distinctly tricuspid. Palate toothless. Eye large, covered by a thick granular lid pierced with a small central opening for the pupil. No tympanum or external ear. Body compressed; neck very short. Vertebrae procoelian. Abdominal ribs present. Limbs long, raising the body. Digits arranged in bundles of 2 and 3; in the hand, the inner bundle is formed of three, the outer of two digits; it is the reverse in the foot. Tail prehensile. Head and body covered with granules or tubercles. Casque much elevated posteriorly, with strong curved parietal crest; the distance between the commissure of the mouth and the extremity of the casque equals or nearly equals the distance between the end of the snout and the hinder extremity of the mandible; no rostral appendages; a strong lateral crest, not reaching the end of the parietal crest; an indication of a dermal occipital lobe on each side, not reaching the parietal crest. No enlarged tubercles on the body; a feebly serrated dorsal crest; a series of conical tubercles form a very distinct crest along the throat and belly. Male with a tarsal process or spur, Tail longer than head and body. Gular-ventral crest white; commissure of the mouth white.