When we arrived at the almost embarrassingly luxurious Anjajavy resort, we were treated to a delicious icy fruity drink on a gorgeous patio overlooking a well-maintained swimming pool which in turn overlooked a beautiful rocky beach. My eyes just darted from rock to tree, looking for lizard shapes. It took about thirty seconds to find my first Oplurus cuvieri on a palm tree trunk about fifty feet away. That particular lizard did not pose for my camera, but no matter — the grounds of Anjajavy were crawling with these robust iguanids.

Here is a list of all the reptiles and frogs I saw on this trip to Madagascar.

These lizards remind me of a cross between America's spiny lizards and collared lizards, except that these guys get much larger than their western hemisphere lookalikes. My sister Mary took the third photograph above.

A couple more of these handsome lizards. The second one looks particularly like a U.S. collared lizard.