the.com/frilled lizard
a tiny reptile that opens an umbrella of skin to convince you it's a dragon
means An Australian and New Guinean lizard that, when threatened, flares a wide collar of skin around its neck to look bigger and more menacing before bolting away on its hind legs.
from A plain descriptive English name: "frilled" from the ruffled collar of skin it unfurls, "frill" being an old word for a decorative ruffled border (its deeper roots are uncertain). The animal carries the same idea in its scientific name, Chlamydosaurus, from Greek 'chlamys,' a cloak — so it is literally the "cloaked lizard."
- frill size
- neck flap spans up to 30 centimeters wide
- bluff master
- hisses, gapes, and flares before it ever bites
- bipedal sprint
- runs upright on hind legs to escape danger
- coin star
- featured on Australia's two-cent piece
- frill purpose
- also dumps body heat and woos mates
for instance
chlamydosaurus kingorum — the scientific name for the australian frilled lizard, native to northern australia and found in fossil records from the pleistocene