Elegant Rainbow Skink (Hoskin CJ / Couper PJ /James Cook University)
Australian biologists have discovered two new species of lizards — the Elegant Rainbow Skink (Carlia decora) and the Orange-flanked Rainbow Skink (Carlia rubigo).
Both species are small skinks belonging to the genus Carlia, a diverse group of skinks in tropical Australia,
said Dr Conrad Hoskin of the James Cook University’s School of Marine and Tropical Biology, co-author of a paper reporting the discovery in the journal Zootaxa.
The species names are in reference to the bright colors sported by breeding males of each species; ‘decora’ means ‘beautiful’ in Latin, with males of that species marked with vivid orange and blue, while ‘rubigo’ translates to ‘rust’, referring to the rusty orange color of males of that species
— via redwolf.newsvine.com
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