Cordylus cordylus

Cordylus cordylus, the Cape girdled lizard, is a medium-sized lizard indigenous to the southern Cape region of South Africa, where it inhabits crags, rocky outcrops and mountain summits. They evade predators by wedging themselves firmly in rock cracks.

Cape girdled lizard
At Mountain Zebra N.P., Eastern Cape
Conservation status
Least Concern  (IUCN 3.1)
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Reptilia
Order:	Squamata
Family:	Cordylidae
Genus:	Cordylus
Species:	C. cordylus
Binomial name
Cordylus cordylus Linnaeus, 1758

Description

Specimen from the Western Cape

The Cape girdled lizard has a golden-brown body with spiny, keeled body scales, especially on its tail.

Range

It is indigenous to the Western and Eastern Cape provinces of South Africa, from Saldanha and Cape Town eastwards as far as Lesotho.

Food

They feed on insects, which are caught by rushing and pouncing.

Habits

They live in large colonies (with social hierarchies) on crags, rocky outcrops and mountain summits. They can often be seen sunbathing on top of prominent rocks. The lizards hide in rocky cracks, but come out in the morning and evening to forage. If threatened, they retreat to their holes and cracks in the rocks, wedge themselves in and lock their bodies there by inflating their lungs. Jammed into the cracks like this, with their thorny tail wrapped protectively over their faces, they are incredibly difficult to prise out.

Reproduction

In the autumn, the females give birth to one or two young, which stay very near the mother for the first year.

Further reading

• Branch, B., 1998. Field Guide to Snakes and other Reptiles of Southern Africa: Ralph Curtis Books Publishing, Sanibel Island, Florida, 399 pp.
• Fitzsimons, V. F., 1943. The Lizards of South Africa: Transvaal Museum Memoir, Pretoria.