Rare "face show"! The critically endangered round-nosed monitor lizard has reappeared in Longling, Yunnan

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On July 10, cadres from Mucheng Township, Longling County, Yunnan Province, took a video of rare and endangered wild animals with their mobile phones during a patrol. According to the judgment of Dr. Wang Jishan of the Kunming Survey and Design Institute of the State Forestry and Grassland Administration, it should be a national Class I key protected wild animal round-nosed monitor lizard, which belongs to a critically endangered species. This is also after more than 10 years, the round-nosed monitor lizard has once again made a rare "appearance" in Longling County.

"Big lizard! Big lizard! At about 3:30 p.m. on the same day, when Yang Guojun, a cadre of Laoman Village in Mucheng Township, and his party of 3 people patrolled to the banks of the Nu River and waited for the yangshan, they suddenly heard the sound of stones rolling down from the stone ridges along the river, followed the prestige, and saw a large lizard preparing to "escape and hide", Yang Guojun quickly recorded this precious image with his mobile phone.

"Looking at the morphology of the monitor lizard in the video data, combined with its distribution range in Longling, it should be a round-nosed monitor lizard." Wang Jishan said that the round-nosed monitor lizard is large, the adult body can reach 2 meters long, the limbs are thick, the fingers are sharp, and the back has small maculas, so it is also called the "five-clawed golden dragon"; it comes out day and night, it looks a little clumsy, but it moves quickly when preying; it can go up to trees or swim in the water, and likes to eat fish, frogs, rats and other foods.

According to Wang Jishan, the number of round-nosed monitor lizards in China is not much, and it can only be seen in South China in China, in Longling County, which mainly inhabits the Jiangzhongzi Conservation Area of the Little Black Mountain Nature Reserve and the surrounding area of the dry and hot river valley, the trees, grasses and other hidden environments near the rivers and streams.

The round-nosed monitor lizard belongs to the national Class I key protected wild animals, and has been listed as a critically endangered species in the Red List of Biodiversity of China and the Red Book of Endangered Animals in China.

"This big lizard has only been seen on TV before. I have heard from the older generation that in 2002, when Mucheng Township was repairing the Anding Ditch, I saw this big lizard. Yang Guojun, a village cadre of Laoman Village, who was born and raised here in Mucheng Township, said.

A good ecological environment is an indispensable condition for wild animals to "inhabit". Wang Jishan said that the round-nosed monitor lizard is one of the important indicator species of the quality of the natural ecosystem of the landscape, and is very sensitive to the quality of the ecological environment of the habitat, which also reflects the protection effect of the natural ecological environment of Longling County from one side.

"Our ecological environment here is getting better and better, and there are more types of animals that can be seen (photographed) than before!" Cai Shuangfa, a photography enthusiast in Mucheng Township Government, said that since he began to engage in photography in 2019, he has recorded nearly 100 species of wild animals such as mammals and birds in the narrow area of Mucheng Township in Longling County alone. (End) (Yu Yunjiang, Hou Yunpeng)