Black-cheek Lizard

The black-cheek lizard is an agamid endemic to Sri Lanka, found at about 1,000 m and above and reasonably common around Nuwara Eliya, Pattipola, Ohiya, Horton Plains and the Knuckles. It is told from the painted-lip lizard by a black bar on the mouth rather than a white or orange one. The head is one and a half times as long as wide, with a row of spines above and behind the ear opening and swollen cheeks in adult males. The back is plain green or has cream, black-edged bars or eye-like spots, and the belly is pale green (Wikipedia, general species account).

It is largely arboreal, on tree trunks, hedges and shrubs, hunting insects and worms by day. At Horton Plains it lives on gorse and rhododendron and hunts bees drawn to the flowers. Females lay up to four eggs in two seasons, November to December and February to March, and hatch after roughly two months. Nationally Endangered (Sri Lanka National Red List 2012).