Northern Water Dragon

About the Northern Water Dragon

Tropicagama is a genus of large-bodied lizards in the family Agamidae. The genus is monotypic, with only one species listed: Tropicagama temporalis, commonly known as the swamplands lashtail or northern water dragon. This semi-arboreal species inhabits the tropical savannah woodlands of northern Australia, as well as parts of New Guinea and southeastern Indonesia.

From its original description in 1867 until 2017, genus Tropicagama has previously been included in multiple other genera, including Amphibolurus, Gemmatophora, Gowidon, Grammatophora, Lophognathus, and Physignathus. The new genus – Tropicagama – was created by Melville et al. in 2018, after an extensive analysis of three genera (Amphibolurus, Gowidon and Lophognathus) that have had long-standing inconsistencies in their taxonomic classification. The morphological and mitochondrial DNA analysis revealed that four distinct evolutionary lines were lumped in the former genus Lophognathus. As a result, the former genus Lophognathus has now been split into genera Amphibolurus, Gowidon, Lophognathus, and Tropicagama. All of these genera are contained within subfamily Amphibolurinae. Wikipedia →