Frilled Lizard
Part of the Lizards and Snakes: Alive! exhibition.
Whoosh! Like an automatic umbrella, the large frill on this lizard's neck pops up when the animal wants to look menacing.
Frill
The frill, a thin fold of skin that usually hangs like a cape, can be 30 cm (12 inches) across when erect. These lizards move them up and down to communicate with one another. When threatened, the animal raises it frill, opens it mouth wide, hisses and stands upright.
Mouth
The tongue and mouth are pink or yellow. Frilled Lizards open their mouths wide when they flare their frills.
Legs
Frilled lizards do almost all their foraging on two legs. When disturbed, they may dash--still upright--for the safety of the nearest tree.
Color
With their gray to brown coloring, Frilled Lizards are well camouflaged when they sit motionless on the trunks and limbs of trees.
Modern Myth
The creators of Jurassic Park were inspired by the Frilled Lizard when they designed their version of Dilophosaurus, the spitting dinosaur. But we don't know if Dilophosaurus had a frill, and the Frilled Lizard doesn't have venom, much less spit it.
Fast Facts
Name: Frilled Lizard; Chlamydosaurus kingii
Size: 60 to 90 centimeters (24 to 35 inches)
Range: Northern Australia, southern New Guinea
Diet: Mostly insects; some small mammals
Meet the Family
The Frilled Lizard is one of the odder members of its large family, Agamidae, a group of 420 species sometimes called the chisel-toothed lizards. Unlike human teeth, "chisel teeth" are fused to the jawbones and may last a lifetime. Chisel teeth appear in 80-million-year-old Mongolian fossil lizards.
African Rainbow Lizard
Agama agama
This lizard, native to Africa, has become established in southern Florida. Experts think pet animals were released--or may have escaped--during a severe hurricane in the early 1990s.
Boyd's Forest Dragon
Hypsilurus boydii
This colorful Australian lizard perches in trees, usually on a vertical branch or trunk, and eats insects.
Mountain Horned Agama
Ceratophora stoddartii
This southern Asian relative of the Frilled Lizard has its own strange ornamentation. Ceratophora means "horn bearer."