An adult pair of green forest Dragons, male right.

I had veered from the trail a bit. Darkness had fallen and we had stopped at a riverside Amazonian village. The evening meal was prepared on the riverboat and a half-dozen of us were walking a trail with our Peruvian guide in the lead. So far, all seen had been a blunt-headed tree snake and 2 species of gecko. I wasn’t too far from the trail, and this being my first trip to the region, I wasn’t about to lose contact with the guide. The Amazonian rainforest is a wonderful place, a bastion of greenery at all levels—including face level.

And it was at face level, on a horizontal branch extending outward from a slender sapling, that I met my first green forest dragon, Enyalioides laticeps. Sleeping soundly on that limb, the foot-long lizard was even greener than the surrounding greenery. Blunt nosed, heavy bodied, and long tailed, in appearance the lizard reminded me of an Asian green water dragon.

Waking only after I had lifted it carefully from the tree, the beautiful creature was identified by the tour leader, photographed by the several hike participants, and replaced.

Since then I have found that this lizard species is rather common and is a whole lot easier to find at night as it sleeps than during the day when it is active.

This was a wonderful start to a 10 day long Amazonian interlude during which over 100 herp species were seen and photographed. Life was good!