Great Plated Lizard Broadleysaurus major (formerly Gerrhosaurus major)

The Great Plated Lizard has several confusing common names. "Great" Plated adheres to its Latin second name "major" but is easily (and often) confused with the Giant Plated Lizard, Matobosaurus validus (formerly Gerrhosaurus validus). It is also commonly called the Sudan Plated Lizard, but its native range is arid savannah and steppe areas of eastern and south-eastern Africa, much more than Sudan. It is also called the Rough-scaled Plated Lizard which, although descriptive, is a bit of a mouthful.

It is an attractive, heavily armoured lizard, the latter protecting it from predators when it wedges itself in rock crevices (like the flat-bodied spiny-tails also from Africa and the Chuckwalla).

It has big ears (the holes behind its eyes). The subspecies B. m. bottegoi (above right) is sometimes considered a full species, B. bottegoi (formerly G. bottegoi).

It lives in burrows and grows up to some 20 inches (over 50 cm) in length.