Leiolepis rubritaeniata

Leiolepis rubritaeniata (Leiolepis rubritaeniata) is an agamid or gecko recorded for Vietnam in the project inventory. The supporting occurrence note is “Expert range list”. Its use of the exact scientific name is important because Southeast Asian lizard taxonomy changes frequently and several close relatives were described only recently. Where a familiar English name is present it is retained; otherwise the scientific name avoids inventing an unsupported vernacular name (project species data; Reptile Database taxonomy).

Butterfly lizards are terrestrial, day-active agamids adapted to open sandy ground. They dig burrows for shelter and temperature control, run rapidly between feeding areas, and consume a mixture of plant material and small animals. Expandable skin folds along the flanks produce the butterfly-lizard name. These are genus-level traits and should not be read as exact species-specific diet proportions or breeding measurements (general Leiolepis ecology; Reptile Database).