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COUNTRY NOTEBOOK: M.Krishnan : DRACO : The Sunday Statesman : 1 May 2016
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DRACO

(FLYING LIZARD)

"A WHITHERED, brown and yellow leaf fell from the Bijli tree above me and cut a swift arc through the air towards a teak some 25 feet away. And even before it alighted expertly on the teak's thick bole, shrank suddenly, and merged invisibly with the streaked bark. I knew that this was no leaf. True that at times an elliptic, windswept leaf does not twirl dead leaf fashion in the air, but it dashed straightway downwards, but the newly opening leaf of the Bijli (Anogeissus Latitolia) was a small and a shrill green in colour, not broad in the middle, brown-and-yellow and tapering to a long, acuminate tip - moreover, no leaf ever fell so purposefully.

I moved slowly and casually towards the teak for I knew that from the brown of its bark small, unseen eyes probably watching me. When I was still not close enough to discern the thin, cryptic, molten form of the 'FLYING LIZARD' against the bark, a small, vivid yellow tongue of flame that leaped up from the tree trunk and then died down betrayed the lizard to me.

The flame-coloured extensile and retractile pouch is at the throat of the lizard; it can be flicked forward towards the chin and then retracted into the throat and when the flying lizard is at rest, it is retracted and invisible. But when it is excited, the gular pouch is shot out and then withdrawn in rapid succession; at times it is kept fully extended for seconds on end. The mechanics of the exra-ordinary display are less dramatic than its effect -- what the eye sees is a bright yellow tongue of flame, about the size of a candle flame and and beautifully blue at the base, repeatedly leaping forward towards the chin and then being extinguished. In the male, the extended gular pouch reaches beyond the chin, the female's pouch is smaller and somewhat peg-shaped; it is less brilliantly coloured, but the female, too, can indulge in the remarkable display.

Flight is achieved by the extension of a thin membrane on either side of the dorso-ventrally flattened body: this membrane is supported by the lower ribs and is quite in conspicuous when folded up, but forms a broad parachute when spread, an orange-yellow speckled with dark brown (or even brownish purple) dots when seen from below -- this parachute gives the lizard the semblance of a withered brown leaf, yellowing at the edges, as it goes sailing through the air, the tail forming the long acuminate tip of the leaf. The head is small, blunt-jawed and furnished with small warts that serves to disrupt its shape, and the small eyes are hard to see. The molten body is almost invisible against many kinds of bark.

These lizards are small, about six inches long and much less in heavy in body, limb and tail than the familiar Gecko on the wall. They do not change colour quickly or vividly but I noticed that those that has been resting for some time on the light grey bark of the Bijli grew lighter and grayer in tone. Incidentally the female is larger than the male as a rule -- I say this on my own responsibility, for I can find no mention of this in any book available to me.

Flight is direct and swift, with both vertical and lateral curvature to the line of flight. Naturally, the lizard drops down and loses height in the course of flight, and though it gains some height in the last foot or two, sailing upwards to brake the momentum; usually it takes off from fairly high up the tree it leaves, and lands fairly low on the tree it goes to. But twice recently, I was astonished to witness flight fully 15 feet in traverse, almost in a horizontal line, with only a lateral curve to the trajectory. Both times there was a distinct carrying breeze, and the lizard took off fairly low, from about 10 feet up a tree trunk; but this was made up by the ascent terminating the flight, so that it alighted on the tree of the destination also some 10 feet up the bole; one of these laterally-arched flights took it over 20 feet, and the other (unmeasured) was probably a few feet less in traverse.

The more I see of the flying lizard in action, the more I marvel at its airmastery and almost incredible skill as a parachutist. I have seen it leave a tree and circle the bole, inches from the bark in a falling spiral, to alight on the trunk of the self-same tree a yard below -- this manoeuvre was indulged in, apparently in response to my scrutiny and to escape it, the lizard getting to the other side of the tree by the move. I have even seen it flit in a half circle to the other side of the other side, losing only in inches in height in doing so. The creature seems exempt from the laws of gravity and to combine magical gifts of levitation with swift wish-powered propulsion through the air! So far I have not seen it glide upward (except during the termination of its flight), but short of that it can control its flight with
amazing certainty and skill.

This Lizard is Draco dussumieri, the only flying lizard to be found in the forests of the South; elsewhere in India, there are other species of Draco differing only in minor details. I do not know why it was called generically, Draco -- the flying dragon of legend has that name but whoever saw such a charming little dragon, even in the world of imagination? Literature on it is meagre or (more probably) beyond my reach. The creature , in spite of its small size, is one of the most remarkable denizens of our jungles.

It is an inhabitant of tall, deciduous tree forests and I have seen it only where soil moisture was adequate and where there was an admixture of evergreens with the deciduous trees that it loves. I have seen it licking up the common red tree-ants of these jungles and once another kind of ant but have seen it take no other prey.

The gular pouch seems to be used not only as a signal or a mode of communication but also in its courtship, especially by the males. Many times I have seen pairs together on a tree but close scrutiny was impossible, for they go up the tree and hide or escape by flight. Once I observed, from a distance and through binoculars, three males and a female on a tree. The males did not indulge in any fighting, but chased one another around in circles or may be they were indulging in a kind of dance of elimination -- as it usual when the males are seeking to oust rivals. The female was a very passive onlooker. The males flashed their gular pouches in and out as they ran around -- that drab tree trunk was alive with brilliant flickering flames for almost five minutes, after that the female flew away to another tree via a clamp of bamboos (bamboo clumps are common where these creatures live), followed in swift succession by her suitors.

Sharp-sighted (these lizards can certainly make out a man from 20 feet away, and an ant from 10 feet), protectively coloured, expert at dodging and twisting on tree trunks and at merging invisibly with the bark and endowed with powers of flight as a last escape, they can not often fall prey to lizard-hunters. However, they are nowhere common. You find them in certain patches of deciduous jungles but not in others close by -- I do not mean that they are given to flitting from place to place through the forest like birds, but they seem to favour only certain places. They do not like dense cover.

What do they eat besides ants? They are obviously diurnal -- where do they spend the night and how? Do they ever come down to earth from the trees they love, and where do they secrete their eggs? To these and dozens of other questions I do not know the answers, nor can I find them in books. Perhaps some reader living near a deciduous forest or even in it, and not merely an occasional visitor like me can provide the answers to these questions."

-M. Krishnan

This was published on 24 June 1962 in The Sunday Statesman

# The photograph of the lizard on the tree is not reproduced here.