Guatemalan Beaded Lizard

Heloderma charlesbogerti, commonly called the Guatemalan beaded lizard or the Motagua Valley beaded lizard, is a highly endangered species of beaded lizard, a venomous lizard in the family Helodermatidae. The species is endemic to the dry forests of the Motagua Valley in southeastern Guatemala, an ecoregion known as the Motagua Valley thornscrub. It is the only allopatric beaded lizard species, separated from the nearest population (H. alvarezi) by 250 km (160 mi) of unsuitable habitat. The Guatemalan beaded lizard is the rarest and most endangered species of beaded lizard, and fewer than 200 individuals of this animal are believed to exist in the wild, making it one of the most endangered lizards in the world. In 2007, it was transferred from Appendix II to Appendix I of CITES due to its critical conservation status.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Heloderma charlesbogerti, by its authors, under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.