The Remarkable Basilisks

Thanks to their striking appearance, basilisks are often featured in books and on TV, but people only ever say the same two things about them: (1) that they have striking display structures like those so obvious here, and (2) that they can run (bipedally) across the surface of water. Yeah, I’ve heard all that before. Tell me something new!

Basilisks are a group of large, mostly green iguanians from Central and South America*, the biggest specimens of which reach 90 cm in total length. As a generalisation, they’re animals of mature, densely vegetated forests – preferably with running streams – and prefer high temperatures and humidities. They’re strongly arboreal and adapted to climbing on boughs and branches, sometimes many metres from the ground (to 20 m at least; Mora & Escobar-Anleu 2017). They rely on water as a means of escaping from and retreating from predators; more on that below.

* In 1976, the Brown or Striped basilisk Basiliscus vittatus was documented in Florida, its presence here being almost certainly due to escape or intentional release from the pet trade. The species is now well established at several location in the south of the state.

from Hacker News https://ift.tt/3ClRXYd