Saving ‘El Escorpión.’
The critically-endangered Guatemalan
Beaded Lizard.
US correspondent Vickie Lillo gets up close and personal with the rarest of lizards, and examines
conservation strategies to bring it back from the brink.
he forked pink tongue flicks in and out of the
venomous lizard’s mouth like a piston on a
locomotive. In and out, in and out. Odour particles are thus
conveyed to sensory cells above the roof of the mouth.
“He’s tasting the air,” declares Ben Roberts, Deputy
Director of Chehaw National Park in Albany (Georgia).
“By doing this he can determine that there is food nearby.”
T
The biologist handles the Guatemalan Beaded Lizard
(Heloderma horridum charlesbogerti), or GBL for short, with
care. It is one of the rarest lizards in the world, and has
been accorded critically-endangered status by CITES.
Hailing from the eastern Motagua Valley of Guatemala,
deep in Central America, this good-sized lagarto inhabits a
47,000-acre (19,020-ha.), semi-arid range of woodland and
subtropical thorn scrub, approximating the size of a large
cattle ranch in Texas. The cloud forests of the colossal
Sierra de las Minas mountains form the northern boundary
of the valley, shielding the remaining landscape from the
moisture-laden currents of humid air blowing in from the
Gulf of Mexico. Those winds deliver all their precipitation
onto the steep slopes, creating, on the leeward side, a rain
shadow in the isolated terrain below. An inhospitable
community riddled with acacia trees, leguminous shrubs,
and low-growing Opuntia (Prickly Pear) cacti.
Unfortunately, the Guatemalan Beaded Lizard has to share
this unique biome – a World Wildlife Fund-recognized
ecosystem under threat – with impoverished subsistence
farmers desperately trying just to eke out a living. With