Not just another lizard: Peruvian beauty offers extinction counternarrative

After a couple of decades poking around Peru’s remote rainforests – some large swaths still untouched by invading woodcutters, miners, cattle grazers, and coca farmers – Pablo Venegas has developed an eye for what is different and even unknown to humankind.

In that time the herpetologist has the discovery of several dozen new frog, snake, and lizard species to his credit.

So when a gorgeous wood lizard with gold-rimmed eyes and a delicate mosaic hide of iridescent blues, oranges, and greens scooted by him several years ago, Mr. Venegas had a hunch the showy reptile was going to add to his list.

And he was right. A lengthy scientific process, these days including DNA sequencing, revealed that