20-05-2025
‘Slender' camouflaged creature found on volcano in Peru. It's a new species
Thousands of feet up on a volcano in Peru, a 'slender' and scaly creature paused on a rock. Its coloring helped it blend 'seamlessly' into the landscape but wasn't enough to keep it from attracting the attention of passing scientists.
It turned out to be a new species.
Researchers hiked up the volcanoes around the city of Arequipa between 2020 and 2021 to survey the wildlife living on the rocky mountain slopes, according to a study published May 15 in the peer-reviewed Salamandra German Journal of Herpetology.
To their surprise, the team encountered several lizards living at altitudes of over 13,600 feet, the study said. Intrigued, they caught some of these lizards and, after taking a closer look at the animals, realized they'd discovered a new species: Liolaemus misti, or the Misti lizard.
Misti lizards are considered 'small and slender,' reaching just over 4 inches in length, the study said.
Photos show the brown and black coloring of the new species. The lizards' 'coloration and patterns allow them to blend seamlessly with their environment, making capture difficult,' study co-authors Roy Santa-Cruz and Rudolf von May told McClatchy News.
Misti lizards are active 'throughout the day, moving in open, rocky areas,' Santa-Cruz and von May said via email. 'Between periods of activity, the lizards hide between rocks… Based on observations of their habitat, they likely feed on small insects such as beetles and ants.'
The 'remarkable' new species is also the 'world's highest elevation lizard,' according to a news release shared with McClatchy News. 'It lives at elevations up to 5,400 meters (17,716 feet) above sea level—currently the highest recorded altitude for any living squamate, the group of reptiles that includes snakes and lizards.'
'The new species represents an important addition to the biodiversity of the Andean highlands and also demonstrates how much remains to be discovered in these extreme environments,' Santa-Cruz said in the release.
Researchers said they named the new species after the Misti Volcano where it was discovered and 'the most distinctive volcano of the three that surround' Arequipa. The word 'misti' means 'a white man' in Quechua and refers 'to the snow or white blanket that covers the volcano.'
So far, Misti lizards have been found at four locations around Arequipa, the second largest city in Peru and a roughly 630-mile drive southeast from Lima toward the border with Bolivia and Chile.
The new species was identified by its habitat, scale pattern, texture, pores, coloring and other subtle physical features, the study said. Researchers did not provide a DNA analysis of the new species.
The research team included Santa-Cruz, Amaranta Canazas-Terán, Renato Bejarano, Evaristo López, Alberto Morales, von May, Alessandro Catenazzi and César Aguilar-Puntriano.
