Spotted Flying Dragon

Spotted Flying Dragon (Draco maculatus) is an agamid or gecko recorded for Vietnam in the project inventory. The supporting occurrence note is “GBIF: 149 Vietnam records”. 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).

Flying dragons are diurnal, arboreal agamids with elongated ribs supporting lateral gliding membranes called patagia. They move between trunks by gliding, forage chiefly for small arthropods on trees and use throat and patagial colours in display. Females descend to the ground to place eggs in soil. These are genus-level traits; pattern, range and dewlap characters are needed for species identification (general Draco ecology; standard agamid references).