These guys were not shy. Several of them were basking on huge slabs of granite right alongside our trail, and they just gave me the stink eye when I crept up on them with camera and tripod.

Here is a list of all the reptiles and frogs I saw on this 2007 trip to Madagascar.

We had hiked around in the shady forest for much of the morning without seeing any Oplurus, which had me a bit worried that we weren't going to see any at all. But eventually we climbed up out of the shade and onto the big boulders in the sun, and soon there were Oplurus everywhere.

Here is a list of all the reptiles and frogs I saw on this 2023 trip to Madagascar.

Unlike at Anja, where these lizards clamber around on huge chunks of granite, here at Isalo they clamber around on huge chunks of sandstone. Totally different.

All of the Oplurus quadrimaculatus that I had seen at Anja Community Reserve had white dorsolateral stripes. At Isalo some of them did, and some of them didn't, which initially led me to believe that they were a different species. I eventually found enough photos online to accept that both patterns were O. quadrimaculatus, but I'm still curious why I only saw the white-stripes pattern at Anja.