Rainbow Agama

The common agama or red-headed rock agama (Agama agama) is a species of lizard from the family Agamidae found in most of sub-Saharan Africa and in Florida where it has spread. To clear up centuries of historical confusion based on Linnaeus and other authors, Wagner et al. designated a neotype (numbered ZFMK 15222) for the species, using a previously described specimen from Cameroon in the collection of the Zoologisches Forschungsmuseum Alexander Koenig in Bonn. The species name was formerly applied to a paraphyletic collection of taxa (a so-called wastebasket); subsequent mitochondrial DNA analysis of various populations indicates they represent separate species. Consequently, three former subspecies A. a. africana, A. a. boensis, and A. a. mucosoensis are now considered separate species, and A. a. savattieri is considered synonymous with A. africana.

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