Scientists believed it was extinct, but Chapman's pygmy chameleon has been rediscovered. One more reason to protect the forests of Malawi.
By definition, the chameleon loves to go unnoticed. Particularly true to its reputation is Chapman's pygmy chameleon (Rhampholeon chapmanorum), whose sightings can be counted on the fingers of one hand, to the point of raising fears of its extinction. A scientific expedition carried out in 2016 in the forests of Malawi, in eastern Africa, nevertheless managed to locate several specimens. The results, published in the journal Oryx, edited by the University of Cambridge, are a call to safeguard an extremely delicate and vital ecosystem.
Unknown to science until 1992, Chapman's pygmy chameleon reaches 5.5 centimetres in length, smaller than a common hen's egg. Krystal Tolley, a lecturer at the South African National Biodiversity Institute and the University of the Witwatersrand, describes it as a "gentle little creature". "Other chameleon species can prove hysterical, hissing and biting, but pygmy chameleons are docile and simply beautiful," she says in a statement.
Fearing the species was now extinct, experts from the South African National Biodiversity Institute and the Malawi Museum launched a crowdfunding campaign to finance a research expedition. Surpassing their most optimistic expectations, they found seventeen adult specimens in two forested areas of the Malawi Hills. There were probably more, but one of the possible research sites was an ancestral cemetery considered sacred and therefore off-limits to them. At Mikundi, where some captive-bred chameleons had been reintroduced in 1998, 21 adults and 11 juveniles were found.
The moment to breathe a sigh of relief has not yet come, however. Because chameleons are already exposed to a risk of extinction far higher than the 15 per cent seen among scaled reptiles, with 34 per cent of species classified as "threatened" and a further 18 per cent as "near threatened" by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Those that live exclusively in forests appear particularly vulnerable — just like Chapman's pygmy chameleon.
Over the past forty years, around 80 per cent of the forests in the Malawi Hills have been destroyed to make way for agricultural land. Only an area the size of about a hundred football pitches remains, the researchers emphasise. "The loss of forests requires immediate attention before this species reaches the point of no return," warns Tolley. "Urgent conservation action is needed, including halting forest destruction and restoring the habitat".
