Southern Flying Lizard

Southern Flying Lizards, more commonly known as the Draco, are amazing reptiles found across the Western Ghats and other hill forests of southern India.

- Santhosh Krishnamoorthy

They have this unique ability to glide from tree to tree, something akin to flying, thus getting their name. They are most commonly seen climbing up on tree trunks amidst the areca-nut plantations. A Draco’s day begins just as the light of morning sun starts streaming in through the canopy. Starting at about the lower middle of the tree trunk, the Draco makes its way up the tree, en-route, gorging on the numerous ants that keep crawling up and down the trunk. Once it makes it to the top of the tree, it glides on to another tree nearby and repeats this process. While on the tree, that tree’s trunk becomes the Draco’s bastion and it defends the same, quite aggressively. It extends the gular sac, the membrane on its throat, as a means of communicating its threat or a courtship intent. Normal, was how the day started, one fine morning in Agumbe, for a male Draco, the star of this story. However, things weren’t to be qu